Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Leeds Corporation Bill,

Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

West Bromwich Corporation Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Fife Electric Power Bill [Lords],

Hastings Tramways Company (Trolley Vehicles) Bill [Lords]

Sidmouth Electricity Bill [Lords],

Wednesbury Corporation Bill [Lords],

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire Electric Power Bill [Lords],

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS (LEAVE).

Mr. DAY: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India have taken steps to provide the full leave reserve necessary to enable the non-commissioned officers in the Army Ordnance Corps to take their leave which they are entitled to; whether the regulations by which non-commissioned officers are eligible for 12 months' leave after six years' service abroad are being fully carried out; if arrangements have been made that the full complement can take their leave during the forthcoming season; and will he give particulars?

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Wedgwood Benn): The necessary steps were taken in June, 1928, to provide a leave reserve of 16 per cent. in the Indian Army Ordnance
Corps so as to enable non-commissioned officers to take leave on the average every six years. I have heard nothing to show that the new system is not working satisfactorily.

Mr. DAY: What does 16 per cent. mean?

Mr. BENN: It means that sufficient provision is made to allow leave after six years' service.

Mr. DAY: Does it not mean that many of these officers have to forgo their leave?

Mr. BENN: Perhaps the best thing the hon. Member can do is to communicate with me privately, or put down a question as to exactly the hardship which he has in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR MAIL SERVICE (KARACHI AND BOMBAY).

Major GRAHAM POLE: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for India when it is expected that the work on the Juhu landing ground near Bombay will have advanced far enough to make possible the establishment of a regular air-mail service between Karachi and Bombay?

Mr. BENN: The latest information I have received is that the landing ground is expected to be fit for regular use throughout the year in 1932. It is at present fit during the dry season only.

Oral Answers to Questions — TELEGRAMS (CENSORSHIP).

Major POLE: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the powers under the Indian Telegraphs Act given to local post office telegraph officials, apart from authority to refuse or delay telegrams which they consider objectionable, permits the censorship of messages submitted for transmission?

Mr. BENN: Yes, Sir, but as regards the use of those powers I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer given to the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain Macdonald) on the 26th May.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDO-EUROPEAN TELEGRAPHS.

Major POLE: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for India what is the present position in regard to the direction and
maintenance of the Indo-European telegraph department; and if any decision has been arrived at in the discussions between the Government of India and the authorities is this country concerning the future of this department?

Mr. BENN: The question is still under discussion with the Government of India.

Oral Answers to Questions — STATUTORY COMMISSION'S REPORT.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether any decision has been reached regarding the translation of the report of the Indian Statutory Commission into foreign languages and into the principal languages in use in India; and, if so, what arrangement have been made?

Mr. BENN: The question is still under consideration.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when a decision will be come to in view of the urgency of this question?

Mr. BENN: I am afraid I cannot fix an exact date, but we have been pursuing inquiries for some time as to the practicability of the hon. and gallant Member's suggestion.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what? obstacles are in the way? I cannot understand the difficulty of translating this report into European languages, though there may be difficulties in translating it into some Indian languages.

Mr. BENN: The obstacle is not concerned with the problem of erudition, but of publication.

Captain PETER MACDONALD: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether it is proposed to issue a summary, at a popular price, of the reports of the Indian Statutory Commission, in view of the length of the complete reports and of the cost of the two volumes thereof?

Mr. BENN: This question is being carefully examined. I may, however, point out that, so far as circulation in this country is concerned, large numbers of the full report have been and are still being bought, and that several newspapers have issued full and excellent summaries.

Captain MACDONALD: In view of the comparatively small number of copies of this report which have been made available, will the right hon. Gentleman consider this proposal?

Mr. BENN: I answered a question on that point a few days ago.

Mr. WELLOCK: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he is in a position to make a statement regarding the Round Table Conference which is to meet in the autumn; and, if not, when he expects to be able to make a statement?

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for India when the Government proposes to announce the further procedure in detail with respect to the consideration of the Simon Commission?

Mr. BENN: For the moment I have nothing to add to the statements that have already been made.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it pro-posed to make a full statement before the House adjourns at the end of the next month?

Mr. BENN: I cannot say at present.

Mr. REMER (for Captain CROOKSHANK): 69.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether a free copy of both parts of the Indian Statutory Commission's Report is being sent to every public library in this country; and, if so, how soon they will be despatched to the libraries?

Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY (Lord of the Treasury): The answer is in the negative. I would remind the hon. and gallant Member that all public free libraries maintained out of the rates may obtain copies of Government publications at one half the published price.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILITARY SERVICE (FAMILY PENSIONS).

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether any progress has yet been made with the arrangements necessary for carrying out the proposals in regard to the Indian military service family pensions contained in the circular letter issued by the India Office in July, 1927?

Mr. BENN: I regret that I am not yet in a position to add anything to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member on the 5th May.

Oral Answers to Questions — FRANCHISE.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for India the number of the electorate who are now entitled to vote for members of the Indian Legislative Assembly; and how many of such electors voted at the last election?

Mr. BENN: The latest information I have is contained in the return presented to Parliament Command Paper 2923 of 1927.

Sir W. DAVISON: Will the right hon. Gentleman send me a copy of the Command Paper, or give me these two important figures now?

Mr. BENN: The hon. Member will exercise his own right and secure a copy in the Vote Office if he wants it. As to the aggregate numbers, they are, 1,125,000 voters, or about 48 per cent.

Mr. WELLOCK: Have not large numbers of these voters long distances to walk or travel to the polling booth?

Mr. BENN: That depends on the Provinces; and that is the reason why I put a very full reply at the disposal of the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison).

Oral Answers to Questions — PATIALA.

Mr. THURTLE: 9 and 10.
asked the Secretary of State for India (1) why, in deciding upon the nature of the present inquiry into allegations of maladministration in the state of Patiala, the Government of India did not conform to the procedure recommended in paragraph 309 of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report which deals with the question of inquiries into the administration of native states;
(2) why the inquiry into the allegations of maladministration in the State of Patiala is being held in camera?

Mr. BROCKWAY: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether it has been decided to hold an inquiry regarding the charges made against the Maharajah of Patiala?

Mr. BENN: The Government of India have not assumed that the allegations in question bring this case within
the definition of the class of cases for which the recommendation of paragraph 309 of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report was intended to provide. The inquiry decided upon was with the object of testing the allegations, and it was considered to be generally desirable that such an inquiry should be held in camera. As I have previously stated, I am in entire agreement with the course of action which the Government of India have adopted.

Mr. BROCKWAY: By whom is this inquiry to be made?

Mr. BENN: The agent to the Governor-General of the Punjab States, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Mr. BROCKWAY: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the agent actually in the State concerned is the most suitable person for making an impartial investigation?

Mr. MARLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the statement that has been made that under Article 7 of the Treaty with Patiala, it is not possible for the paramount Power to appoint the tribunal, but only to suggest?

Mr. BENN: I cannot go into the interpretation of the Treaty unless proper notice is given.

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these matters have been investigated by a competent judicial authority years ago and dismissed; and is he also aware of the doubtful character of some of the persons making these allegations?

Oral Answers to Questions — SITUATION.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he will give the House the latest information he has as to the position of affairs in India?

Mr. BENN: I am circulating a statement giving an appreciation of the situation by the Government of India up to 28th June.

Following is the statement:

North-West Frontier Province.—(a) The tribal situation in general shows marked improvement and strong action which ended in dispersal of Utman Khel lashkar has had good effect on tribes in
general. In Dir and Swat all continues normal. In other parts of the Malakand Agency responsible tribal elders are beginning to regain control over unruly element and are co-operating with political authorities in maintenance of order. On 23rd June, fourth attempt was made to persuade Haji of Turangzai by peaceful methods to withdraw his following from northern border Peshawar District, and air action was suspended. Jirga of Mohniand elders from British territory went out to discuss matters with him, taking with them Deputy Commissioner's reply to their petition to effect that Government was not interfering with religious affairs of Muslims, and that Abdul Chaffar Khan of Utmanzai was undergoing imprisonment because he had refused to give security.

On this occasion persuasions of jirga met with success. Haji's following has now completely dispersed and leaders have gone to their homes. Judging from past experience, however, of Haji, it would be unwise to assume that his activities are over. He is still in communication with Afridis and other tribes and would, no doubt, readily resume hostilities if he could get sufficient following. Owing to dissension among themselves Afridi jirga at Bagh on 20th June came to no conclusion with regard to future course of action. It is clear, however, that unruly hostile element is still strong. On 22nd June, gang of 60 Zakka Khel Afridis raided village of Akbarpura, 10 miles east of Peshawar, and other gangs are known to be moving about in Orakzai country. Small hostile section of Mullas is carrying on propaganda against Government, but efforts have not so far met with any real measure of success. Some agitation is for first time beginning to make itself felt on Kurram border. In Waziristan as result of air action taken against village of Sultana, lashkars which hostiles were endeavouring to assemble have broken up and the leading hostiles have left Mahsud country.

(b) Internal situation greatly improved and respect for law and order gradually being restored throughout Peshawar District. Small military column touring in Swabi Tahsil had friendly reception from many villages previously disaffected. Troops have been
withdrawn from most villages in Charsadda area and inhabitants are co-operating in the restoration of order.

2. The situation in other parts of India shows no great change. In Bombay City police on several occasions have had to disperse very large processions or demonstrations which have been attempted in deliberate defiance of orders under law, and this has given rise to considerable bitterness. In Surat there have been attempts to picket the local college and to prevent students from rejoining after vacation. More dacoities have been reported from Kaira District, in Gujerat, where the Civil Disobedience movement has encouraged spirit of lawlessness among those of criminal proclivities. In Madras there has been small clash in rural district between mob and police and Congress activities are reported to be vigorous in certain districts. Local Government have declared certain organisations as unlawful associations. Elsewhere in the province situation appears to have improved. There has been a little trouble in one or two villages in Punjab, but prompt preventive action has been taken. In this province also local government have declared as unlawful associations a number of Congress and revolutionary bodies.

3. In last week's appreciation, mention was made of activities designed to seduce troops and police from their loyalty. These continue to be prosecuted with vigour and it appears that they are now given very prominent place in Congress programme. Another form which this movement takes is the holding of meetings and demonstrations in sympathy with and praise of the men of the Garhwali regiment who were found guilty of mutiny. In some provinces propaganda in rural areas is also on the increase, but results so far have not been serious and, except in Gujerat, no difficulty has been experienced in the collection of land revenues. The second volume of Statutory Commission's report has had unfavourable reception from practically all Indian quarters. Proposals are generally condemned as inadequate, but criticism of particular items varies considerably according to community to which critics belong.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRAINING COLLEGE, LAHORE.

Mr. WELLOCK: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for India on what grounds the workers' training college at Lahore has been declared illegal; and if the order is permanent?

Mr. BENN: I have no information but if my hon. Friend desires it I will inquire.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISTURBANCES, PESHAWAR.

Mr. BROCKWAY: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has yet received a report of the committee of inquiry into the disturbances at Peshawar?

M. BENN: No, Sir. I have not yet received the report.

Mr. BROCKWAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he expects this report, and whether he proposes to issue it as a White Paper?

Mr. BENN: I cannot say when it will be received. The question of publication will need to be carefully considered.

Mr. BROCKWAY: May I ask whether the evidence given before the inquiry does not suggest that the official communique grossly or gravely under-estimated——

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. BROCKWAY: 18.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the court-martial sentences have yet been promulgated upon the Indian soldiers who declined to obey orders to shoot at Peshawar; and, if so, what the sentences are?

Mr. BENN: I would point out that these soldiers were tried for refusing to obey orders to proceed from their lines to the city. The sentences have been confirmed by the General Officer Commanding in Chief, Northern Command, and have been duly promulgated. One man was sentenced to transportation for life, one to transportation for 15 years, and sentences were passed on 15 others ranging from 10 years transportation to three years rigorous imprisonment.

Mr. BROCKWAY: Does not the right hon. Gentleman regard such sentences——

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. W. J. BROWN: On a point of Order. May I ask in what way my hon. Friend's supplementary question is out of order.

Mr. SPEAKER: It is out of order to ask a Minister for his opinion. He can be asked for a statement of facts.

Mr. BROWN: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman proposes to leave unreviewed these vindictive sentences—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot allow adjectives of that sort.

Mr. BROWN: May I withdraw the adjective and ask whether the right hon. Gentleman proposes to leave unreviewed these sentences upon Indian soldiers whose sole crime is that they refused to proceed against their own fellow countrymen?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter of military discipline.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE (PAY).

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: 19.
asked the Secretary of State for India how the pay of the Indian police in British India compares with the pay of agricultural labourers in India?

Mr. BENN: It is impossible to make any satisfactory comparison on account of the variations in the pay of the police and wages of agricultural labourers in the different provinces.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Having regard to the immense importance of the police in the future development of personal liberty in India, will the right hon. Gentleman not consult with the Government of India with a view to increasing the pay of the Indian police?

Mr. BENN: The hon. Gentleman asks a totally different question in his supplementary from the original question.

Mr. SPEAKER: Sir Kingsley Wood.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: On a point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman has described my question as different. I think I am in order in asking in what way it is different?

Mr. SPEAKER: I did not hear the hon. Member's supplementary question, but it appears to have been out of order.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA SITUATION.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make a statement as to the present position in China, particularly relating to the Customs?

Captain P. MACDONALD: 22.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make respecting the situation in China?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): With regard to the general situation in China, the only development of importance since my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, Central, on the 23rd June, has been the occupation of Tsinan by the forces of the northern coalition. As regards the Customs, the Nanking Government have issued an order the effect of which is that the duties on the Tientsin trade must be paid to the Customs at Shanghai and other ports, Whether paid to the Customs at Tientsin or not. Efforts are being made to find some solution in the nature of a compromise between the rival Chinese parties.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Does the right hon. Gentleman's information go to show that it is still possible to carry on British trade at all at Tientsin?

Mr. HENDERSON: Yes, I have not found anything to the contrary as yet.

Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that interference with the administration of the Customs Office is an impediment to our export trade, and will he take some steps to hurry things up in regard to it?

Mr. HENDERSON: This occurred only within the last few days, and I do not see what can be done to hurry things up. In some of these cases you can hurry up too much.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

PROPAGANDA.

Sir ASSHETON POWNALL: 21.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will direct the attention of those in charge of the machinery set up by the Government to inquire into Soviet propaganda in this country to the public display in London and Liverpool
of the film The End of St. Petersburg, by the Russian Communist Pudovkin, in view of the subversive propaganda contained in this film and of the evidence which points to its having been introduced into this country by agents of the Communist International?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The public exhibition of any film depends upon the decision of the competent local authorities, and I do not propose to take any action in the matter.

Sir A. POWNALL: Has the right hon. Gentleman had sent to him particulars in regard to these activities, and, if not, may I have particulars sent to him for his consideration?

Mr. HENDERSON: I am always open to receive anything that will help me to come to a conclusion.

Mr. DAY: Does my right hon. Friend think that the local authorities have sufficient powers?

Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSON: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect to get the results of this inquiry before the end of the Session?

Mr. HENDERSON: I do not know to which inquiry the hon. Gentleman refers. There is nothing about an inquiry here.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The question refers to "machinery set up by the Government to inquire."

Mr. HENDERSON: That is an entirely different question, of which I must have notice.

Mr. W. J. BROWN: In view of the tremendous educational value of the question, can the Foreign Secretary extend facilities to Members of the Opposition so as to help them to understand the revolution?

Mr. SMITHERS: Are we to understand that if, in fact, there was revolutionary propaganda, the Government, as a central Government, have no power to deal with the matter?

Mr. HENDERSON: That would depend upon circumstances.

Sir W. DAVISON: 26.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, having regard to the fact that the Report of the Sixth Congress of the
Communist International, giving particulars of the active part taken by agents of the Third International in fomenting unrest throughout the British Empire, is an official document printed by the State publishing department in Moscow and not merely a press statement, that there can be no doubt as to its authenticity, and that there is no need for its verification by the special machinery set up by the Government to inquire into unofficial reports of propaganda, he will explain for what reason this official documents has not been brought to the attention of the Soviet ambassador, having regard to the express pledge given by him when he assumed office?

Mr. HENDERSON: The report to which the hon. Member refers is, I understand, a collation of the proceedings of the Congress held in the summer of 1928; and in consequence cannot well be regarded as a proper subject for representations under the agreement of December, 1929.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the incidents referred to therein with approval by the present Soviet Government occurred quite recently?

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: 29.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the school of oriental propaganda at Tashkent is still being carried on; and, if not, whether its functions are undertaken by any other institution in that city?

Mr. HENDERSON: I have no definite information on the subject, but I am making inquiries.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this school has been moved to Moscow and is there now?

Mr. HENDERSON: That will probably be answered in the reply to the inquiries that I have made.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman let us know when the information is available?

Oral Answers to Questions — DEBTS, CLAIMS AND COUNTERCLAIMS.

Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLE: 27.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state the names
of the British members of the joint committee to negotiate with Soviet representatives on claims and counterclaims?

Captain P. MACDONALD: 28.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any intimation from the Soviet Government as to the composition of the delegation to negotiate on claims and counter-claims; and, if so, whether he will state the names of the Soviet delegates?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: If the hon. Members will repeat these questions next Monday, I hope to be in a position to announce the composition of the Committee.

Mr. SMITHERS: Will the right hon. Gentleman make certain that representative business men are members of our Committee?

Oral Answers to Questions — LENA CONCESSION (ARBITRATION).

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: 31.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is able to report any further progress in the Lena abitration proceedings in Berlin?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: No, Sir. The hon. Member is no doubt aware that a sitting of the Court of Arbitration took place in London on the 19th June, and that the proceedings of the Court are not yet concluded.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman at least ask the Soviet Ambassador on his return for the reasons why the Soviet Government have not taken part in these proceedings according to contract?

Mr. WISE: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a full statement of these reasons was sent to the "Times," and that the "Times" refused to publish it, or has not yet published it?

Oral Answers to Questions — RELIGIOUS SITUATION.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: 32.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received notice of any relaxation in the law in Soviet Russia forbidding the teaching of religion by foreigners?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: No, Sir. I have not received notice of any change in the law relating to this matter.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: As soon as the right hon. Gentleman finds out whether the reports in the Press as regards relaxation of persecution are true, will he inform the House?

Mr. HENDERSON: Perhaps the hon. Member will assist me by saying which Press he refers to?

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

DIPLOMATIC SERVICE (COMMERCE).

Mr. MANDER: 23.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state whether it is the intention of the Government to appoint any form of committee of inquiry into the question of unifying the diplomatic, Consular and commercial diplomatic services?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: No, Sir. The duties of the three services are in many respects different, and call for somewhat different qualifications. Experience has shown that the existing practice, whereby officers are transferred from time to time from one service to another according to their particular aptitudes, is peferable to any rigid system of unification.

Mr. MANDER: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to allow the past system to continue indefinitely unchanged?

Oral Answers to Questions — ENEMY DEBTS DEPARTMENT.

Mr. W. J. BROWN: 66.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that all the temporary clerks in the clearing office, Enemy Debts Department, have been given notice of discharge to take effect from 30th August; what is the average length of service of the officers concerned; and whether he can give an assurance that alternative employment in the Civil Service will be available for these officers before the notice of discharge expires?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. W. R. Smith): The progress in the work of the Clearing Office for Enemy Debts enables a further reduction to be made in the routine staff at the end of August. Sixteen temporary Grade III Clerks have been warned that their appointments will terminate on the 30th August. The average length of Government service of these 16 men is 10 years. Their
names have been reported to the Joint Substitution Board, and there is good reason to expect that alternative employment will be available for them.

Mr. W. J. BROWN: 68.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that notices of discharge have been served on some 16 temporary clerks in the Clearing Office, Enemy Debts Department, he will arrange that no further recruitment of boys and girls of adolescent age through open competitive examinations shall take place in any department of the Civil Service until these officers have been found posts?

Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: I have been asked to reply. While no difficulty is anticipated in finding in normal cases further employment without break in service for the temporary clerks whose work in the Enemy Debts Department is coming to an end in August, the requirements of the public service make the hon. Member's suggestion quite impracticable.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT (TREATY PROPOSALS).

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 24.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether, in view of the change of Government that has taken place in Egypt, the draft treaty which was offered to the late Egyptian delegation is still available to the new Government;

Mr MANDER: 25.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any statement to make with reference to the present position in Egypt as affecting treaty negotiations with this country?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The treaty proposals remain open in the conditions as to ratification which I defined in this House on the 23rd of December last.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is this not a very suitable opportunity to withdraw the offer and revert to the status quo?

Oral Answers to Questions — HUNGARY (TREATY OF TRIANON).

Mr. MANDER: 30.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any resolutions' and, if so, how many have recently been received by the Secretary-
General of the League of Nations from representative bodies in Hungary with reference to the Treaty of Trianon; and whether he will inquire as to what action has been taken thereon?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: I have no information that any resolutions of this nature have been recently received by the Secretary-General of the League of Nations, but I am making inquiries.

Mr. MANDER: Does the right hon. Gentleman not feel that the setting up of a more democratic regime in Hungary would ease the situation?

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

NEED PENSIONS.

Mr. TINKER: 34.
asked the Minister of Pensions how many need pensions have been reduced or taken away altogether through the recipient having been awarded a pension under the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act; and will be also say if consideration is being given to the desirability of not interfering with such cases?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. F. O. Roberts): Need pensions are determined in accordance with the financial circumstances of the pensioner, and as such are necessarily subject to adjustment in the event of any permanent change in those circumstances. I could not, therefore properly make an exception in favour of one class of income. No special record is kept of the adjustments resulting from the grant of an old age pension. In the majority of cases, however, the net result of adjustments on this account is, I understand, to increase the aggregate income of ale pensioner.

Mr. TINKER: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in many cases when they have got these widows' pensions, that only just balances what they receive, and therefore the benefit that they expect to receive is no benefit at all?

Mr. ROBERTS: I have given a reply to that point in the first part of my answer. I can only assess on the basis of need.

Mr. TINKER: Will my right hon. Friend consider being more lenient in the matter?

Miss LEE: In view of the fact that the pensions are inadequate, even when supplemented by the additional 10s., will the right hon. Gentleman consider leaving them unreduced?

Mr. ROBERTS: If the need comes within the scale of the Ministry, I can adjust the pension.

Miss LEE: But it is the scale that is inadequate.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

GERMAN EXPORT PRICES.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: 37.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he will compile a list of the cuts in the principal competitive export selling prices made by German industrialists in order to reduce German unemployment, and circulate the information among British industrialists as soon as possible?

Mr. GILLETT (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I assume that the hon. Member has in mind the recent arbitration award in the German iron and steel industry which has resulted in a reduction of wages and prices. The new scale of inland selling prices for steel has been reported to my Department and has already appeared in the Press. Any information that may become available as to adjustments of export prices in this and other trades will be communicated to the British interests concerned.

Mr. SAMUEL: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that in Germany the producers are making a general cut—quite apart from iron and steel—embodying the fall in the price of raw materials, and the general reduction in the cost of production in Germany?

Mr. GILLETT: I understand that the cases to which the hon. Gentleman specially refers do not relate to the export trade, but are confined to the home trade.

Mr. SAMUEL: Will the hon. Gentleman indicate where I refer to any particular cases? I refer to the whole range of prices.

Oral Answers to Questions — EXPORT CREDITS SCHEME.

Mr. ALBERY: 38.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether
export credit facilities will be made available for the purchase of aeroplane engines on behalf of the Soviet trade commissar?

Mr. GILLETT: The Advisory Committee to the Export Credits Guarantee Department will consider on their merits any applications made to them by exporters in this country provided that they fall within the scope of the scheme.

Mr. ALBERY: Has the hon. Gentleman any information concerning a special commission in this country for aeroplane engines?

Mr. GILLETT: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down that question.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: Would aeroplane engines fall within the scope of the scheme?

Mr. GILLETT: As the hon. Member is aware, anything that may be used for military purposes, always has to be very carefully considered.

Mr. DOUGLAS HACKING: 35 and 36.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department (1) the number and total face value of the contracts definitely concluded between his Department and exporters in Great Britain in respect of exports to countries, other than Russia, under the Exports Credits Scheme during March, April, and May, respectively, and the share of the risk which the Government have accepted under these contracts;
(2) the number and total face value of the contracts definitely concluded between his Department and exporters in Great Britain in respect of exports to Russia under the Exports Credits Scheme during March, April and May, respectively; and the share of the risk which the Government have accepted under these contracts?

Mr. GILLETT: With the right hon. Gentleman's permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the figures for which he asks.

Following are the figures:

The number and face value of contracts entered into under the Exports Credits Guarantee Scheme in respect of exports to countries other than Russia, during March, April and May, 1930, respectively, together with His Majesty's Government's liability thereon are as follow:


—
Number of Contracts.
Face Value.
H.M. Government's Liability.


1930.

£
£


March
…
180
414,503
274,700


April
…
142
285,722
175,471


May
…
227
247,900
147,928




549
948,125
598,099

The number and face value of contracts entered into under the Exports Credits Guarantee Scheme in respect of exports to Russia, during March, April and May, 1930, respectively, together with His Majesty's Government's liability thereon are as follow:


—
Number of contracts.
Face Value.
H.M. Government's Liability.


1930.

£
£


March
…
29
585,277
351,166


April
…
20
558,979
335,387


May
…
26
358,615
215,319




75
1,502,871
901,872

Oral Answers to Questions — FAR EAST (ECONOMIC MISSION).

Mr. ALBERY: 39.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department Whether he can give any particulars concerning the proposed Government Trade Commission to China?

Mr. BROTHERS: 41.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he is yet in a position to make any announcement regarding a possible Economic Mission to the Far East, and particularly with regard to the representation of cotton interests thereon?

Mr. GILLETT: As the result of the recommendations of the Overseas Trade Development Council, who have consulted leading industrialists, His Majesty's Government propose to send an Economic Mission to the Far East. The necessary arrangements have not yet been completed, and I am not therefore in a position to supply any detailed information.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Can the hon. Gentleman say, without going into details, whether the commission is to be confined to China, or is to include other contiguous countries?

Mr. GILLETT: I am afraid I cannot give any definite information as to that point.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: Will it include members who do not belong to the Government Department, as was the case with the commission which we sent to Australasia; or will it contain only members belonging to the Government Department?

Mr. GILLETT: It is not confined to members of the Government Department.

Mr. W. J. BROWN: Is it likely that any Labour man will be appointed?

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: 40.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department the nature and extent of the organisation of his Department in India at the present time; and whether, in view of the conditions existing there respecting British trade, any special activities are being undertaken by that organisation with a view to the mitigation of difficulties?

Mr. GILLETT: The Department is represented in India by a senior trade commissioner at Calcutta and the trade commissioners stationed respectively at Bombay and Calcutta. As regards the last part of the question, these officers are watching the situation very closely, and, when occasion demands, are rendering such assistance as they properly can in the interests of British export trade.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: Considering the parlous condition of British trade in India, and the efforts that are being made in India to injure and depreciate it, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the need for some counter-organisation on the part of the Government to counteract those efforts?

Mr. GILLETT: That matter is being very carefully considered by my Department.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: Can the hon. Gentleman say what practical measures have emanated from that consideration?

Mr. GILLETT: There is nothing which I can tell the hon. Member at the moment. The matter is being considered by the Department.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Does the hon. Gentleman refer to a new set of officers at these places, or to the trade commissioners appointed by the Government of India?

Mr. GILLETT: I am referring to the trade commissioners appointed to act under the Overseas Trade Department of this Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRIAL REORGANISATION.

Sir K. WOOD: 61.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs what progress has been made by him in promoting the economic reorganisation of certain industries; and if he contemplates any further action in this connection?

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): There is increasing evidence of the progress that is being made with industrial reorganisation, but the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that negotiations among the large number of interests involved must of necessity be delicate and prolonged, and that it is not possible to give information as to the negotiations which are in progress.

Sir K. WOOD: Is any further action contemplated, and does the right hon. Gentleman propose to undertake another mission to Canada this year?

Mr. THOMAS: If I felt that the success attending my mission to Canada would be as successful as is indicated by the fact that within the last few hours, I am informed, 40,000 tons of bituminous coal have been shipped to Canada for the first time, I would certainly take that step.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHIPPING INDUSTRY.

Mr. C. WILLIAMS (for Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE): 67.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the depression in the British shipping industry, he will consider the desirability of stipulating that the conveyance overseas of all goods bought in this country with the aid of the export credit system shall be effected in vessels registered under the British flag?

Mr. GILLETT: Any stiplation on the lines suggested by the hon. Member would be contrary to the navigation policy of His Majesty's Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

CONFERENCE.

Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVE: 42.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether sufficient material is now available to enable the Agricultural Conference to resume its deliberations?

Viscount WOLMER: 55.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he proposes to re-summon the Agricultural Conference and, if so, when?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Dr. Addison): I do not propose at present to re-summon the Agricultural Conference, but I shall not hesitate to do so when there is a desire on the part of the members for a further meeting or when circumstances make a further discussion desirable.

Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVE: If the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied with what the Conference has recommended him to do, will he introduce legislation to give effect to the recommendation?

Dr. ADDISON: The recommendation takes the form of a general resolution and not specific proposals.

Viscount WOLMER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a very specific proposal, asking the Government to give English meat to the forces?

Dr. ADDISON: The main resolution of the Conference was not that particular resolution.

Viscount WOLMER: Will the right hon. Gentleman make some response to that particular resolution?

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPORTED PRODUCTS (MARKING).

Mr. HURD: 43.
asked the Minister of Agriculture how many orders have been made requiring the marking of certain articles of imported agricultural and horticultural products with an indication of origin; what are these products; and when were the orders made?

Dr. ADDISON: As the reply is rather long, I propose, with the permission of the hon. Member, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

Five Orders in Council have been made under the Merchandise Marks Act, 1926,
requiring imported agricultural or horticultural produce to bear an indication of origin. The articles to which these relate and the dates when the Orders were made are as follows:

Honey and fresh apples—13th July, 1928.
Currants, sultanas and raisins; Eggs in shell; Dried eggs; and Oat products—21st December, 1928.
Rose trees—7th May, 1929.
Raw tomatoes—17th December, 1929.
Malt products—26th June, 1930.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL MARK SCHEME.

Mr. HURD: 44.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what are the articles of agricultural and horticultural produce in respect of which the national mark scheme is in force; and what other articles of agricultural and horticultural produce are expected in the near future to come within the purview of national mark schemes?

Dr. ADDISON: National mark schemes are at present in force in respect of apples, pears, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, wheat flour, home-killed beef (in London and Birmingham), malt products, dressed poultry, strawberries, cherries, and canned fruit and vegetables. It is anticipated that a scheme for cider will be formulated in the near future.

Oral Answers to Questions — CEREAL GROWING.

Viscount WOLMER: 56.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has made any response to the unanimous recommendation of the Agricultural Conference that steps should be taken to make cereal growing remunerative?

Dr. ADDISON: The position of cereal growers in this country is a matter which is at present receiving my consideration, but I am not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject.

Viscount WOLMER: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to do anything about it besides giving it his consideration?

Mr. ALPASS: Is it not a fact that the Opposition had four years in which to do something?

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS.

Viscount WOLMER: 57.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has
any proposals to make for the benefit of agriculture in addition to those brought forward by his predecessor; and, if so, when he proposes to lay them before Parliament?

Dr. ADDISON: I have under consideration a number of proposals in addition to those brought forward by my predecessor, but I am not able to-day to say when proposals will be brought before Parliament.

Viscount WOLMER: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman is faithfully following the policy of his predecessor?

Dr. ADDISON: Quite the contrary.

Mr. ALBERY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) has already given definite information?

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

POLITICAL PARTIES (COMMITTEE).

Mr. DAY: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the appointment of a non-party committee of the House for the purpose of considering the present need for the alleviation of privation and want caused through unemployment in many of the distressed areas?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): After recent experience I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by trying to set up a committee such as my hon. Friend suggests.

Mr. DAY: Has my right hon. Friend considered the advantages of a Treasury grant as a means of alleviating this distress?

The PRIME MINISTER: That is a totally different question. As a matter of fact, the Treasury is finding money.

Oral Answers to Questions — WORK SCHEMES.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the need of some better method of keeping the Departments concerned in touch with local authorities engaged in the preparation and carrying out of schemes of public works for the relief of unemployment and the assistance of in-
dustry and agriculture; that this is particularly the case where a number of authorities are concerned with the larger schemes and that delays often occur in getting these various local authorities together; and whether he has considered some method of improvement?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am aware of the need for securing close co-operation between the local authorities concerned in the preparation and carrying out of schemes, and between them and the Departments concerned. This was one of the subjects considered at the recent conferences with representatives of local authorities, and I hope that more will be done in this direction as the result of the conferences. A suggestion has been made to the conference that county councils should hold conferences with county district councils in their areas. This has been adopted.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Would my right hon. Friend also look into the point, which I refer to in my question, of bringing the different bodies together where there are one or two districts, even outside the county councils concerned in some big scheme; and is he aware that some of the ripe schemes are being held up by the delay in getting the bodies together?

The PRIME MINISTER: We are now studying, as a matter of fact, all the reasons, the many reasons, for the delays that have taken place. We have discovered that that is one, and it is being dealt with.

Oral Answers to Questions — DIVORCE LAW (LUNACY).

Mr. KNIGHT: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether he has received a memorial, signed by 70 Members of the House of Commons, praying for facilities for the Bill to make certified lunacy of five years and upwards a ground for divorce; whether he is aware that there is a national demand for this reform in the divorce law; and whether he can see his way to grant facilities for the further stages of this one-Clause Bill?

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir. As I have already informed by hon. Friend by letter, in the present state of Parliamentary business I regret it is not possible to grant facilities for the Bill
referred to, and I can only refer him to the statement which I made on Business on the 25th June last.

Mr. KNIGHT: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his sympathetic reply, may I ask him Whether, if an opportunity occurs, of allowing facilities for this Bill, that opportunity will be taken?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS.

PROCEDURE.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: 48.
asked the Prime Minister whether it is his intention to move for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the question of procedure; and, if so, when he will be in a position to make a statement on the subject?

Mr. McELWEE: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is now able to announce the decision of the Government on the Report of the Select Committee on the hours of sittings of the House?

The PRIME MINISTER: The Government have had under consideration the report of the Select Committee on the Hours of Meeting and Rising of the House. It will be remembered that the Committee suggested that a general inquiry into the methods of procedure was desirable, and it has been decided to ask the House as soon as possible after the commencement of next Session to set up a Select Committee on procedure with wide terms of reference.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: In view of the importance which was given to this question when it was first raised and the support given by the Prime Minister and his colleagues, why not do so this Session instead of waiting for the next Session?

The PRIME MINISTER: We considered that point and I am afraid we discovered after going into details that there would be very little time gained by that.

Miss LEE: Will the Prime Minister not consider at least setting up such a Committee now, so that the House would be able to start the new Session in a business-like fashion, instead of beginning as at present?

Mr. WISE: Is it not possible for such a Committee to it in the Recess, so that
we may start next Session with the hope of not having the same misfortunes in regard to procedure as we have had this Session?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am always very glad to inform those who are anxious to reform procedure, so that they may master the existing procedure. It is not possible to do so.

Mr. WISE: Am I to understand that it is beyond the powers or outside the desires of the Prime Minister to change the procedure?

The PRIME MINISTER: It is beyond the powers of the Prime Minister to have a Select Committee sitting during the Recess.

COMMITTEE ROOM (PAINTING).

Mr. TINKER: 60.
asked the First Commissioner of Works if the painting of the unknown warrior's grave is to remain in Committee Room 10; and will he give consideration to it being placed in a more prominent position than the one it now occupies?

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): The best position for this picture has been the subject of careful consideration, and I am afraid I am unable to suggest a more suitable position than that which it now occupies.

Mr. TINKER: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it was in the King's Robing Room before, and that many interested visitors ask where it has gone to, and we cannot get into Committee Room 10, because sometimes the Committee is sitting?

Mr. LANSBURY: There is a number of authorities who decide these matters, and before I took office this matter was thoroughly considered by all of them, and it was decided to put it where it now is.

Mr. TINKER: I hope my right hon. Friend will again consider it.

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.

Sir OSWALD MOSLEY: 51.
asked the Prime Minister whether an opportunity will be provided before the end of the Session for a discussion of the proposals which the Government will lay before the
Imperial Economic Conference, irrespective of such proposals involving legislation?

The PRIME MINISTER: It has already been explained to the House that the Agenda of the Imperial Conference is a matter to be settled in consultation with His Majesty's Governments in the Dominions, and this consultation is still proceeding. I shall hope to be in a position to give the House an outline of the Agenda both on the political and the economic side before the end of the Session. If there be a desire to discuss the matter it can be raised on Supply according to previous custom, or on the Appropriation Bill.

Mr. REMER: In Committee of Supply are we not prohibited from discussing a large number of cases which must arise at the Imperial Conference?

The PRIME MINISTER: That is so. In Supply, the question can only be raised partially, but not in the other case.

Oral Answers to Questions — HYDE PARK (BATHING).

Mr. DAY: 58.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he has received any complaints of the behaviour of persons during the mixed bathing sessions in the Serpentine, Hyde Park; and what action he has taken for the further protection of the public during these bathing sessions?

Mr. LANSBURY: No complaints have been received in my Department of the behaviour of bathers. With regard to the second part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave in this House on Thursday last.

Mr. DAY: Does my right hon. Friend think the measures taken are now sufficient to keep order?

Mr. LANSBURY: Certainly. I think the people who go and bathe are just average people like ourselves.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

PERSONNEL.

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 62.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he proposes to reduce the personnal of His Majesty's Navy by cutting down enlistment only or by denying ratings the right to re-engage for pension, or both?

Mr. PARKINSON (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. As was stated in the reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Londonderry (Major Ross) on the 25th June (OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 1123), it is proposed to reduce numbers by limiting entries. It is not proposed to restrict re-engagement to complete time for pension.

GUNS.

Sir B. FALLE: 63.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware that the 155-mm. gun in use in foreign navies is a weapon superior to the six-inch gun in His Majesty's Navy; and if he proposes to introduce an improved six-inch gun in the new programme ships or to accept the inequality?

Mr. PARKINSON: I have been asked to reply. It is recognised that the 155-mm. (6.1-inch gun) is a rather more powerful weapon than a six-inch gun of contemporary date, but it is not necessarily the most suitable gun for the cruisers we are going to build. The six-inch gun to be mounted in the new programme ship is of modern design.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: What are you going to do with the large amount of ammunition which we have for the six-inch guns now? Will it be available?

Sir B. FALLE: Does the hon. Gentleman think it is quite fair to the personnel of the Navy to send them to sea with inferior guns?

DEVONPORT DOCKYARD (EMPLOYMENT).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 64.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in the event of His Majesty's Ship "Ben-bow" being scrapped, consideration will be given to the breaking up of the ship in Devonport dockyard in order to provide employment there?

Mr. PARKINSON: I have been asked to reply. This matter is still under consideration, but there are many reasons for using the Royal Dockyards for constructive naval work rather than ship-breaking.

RATING ASSESSMENTS.

Mr. LINDLEY: 65.
asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been drawn to instances of local official valuers, in pursuance of their duties, entering the
homes of ratepayers without any previous notice being given to the householder; and whether he will give instructions directing local valuers to send reasonable notice to householders specifying the approximate time and date of the official valuers' intended visit?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): My right hon. Friend's attention has not been drawn to specific instances. Under Section 38 of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, the power of a valuer appointed by a rating authority, assessment committee or county valuation committee to enter premises for the purposes of survey and valuation can be exercised only at reasonable times and after giving due notice. My right hon. Friend is not empowered to issue instructions in the matter, but, if my hon. Friend will notify him of any areas in which the requirements of the Section are not observed, he will communicate with the local authority concerned.

Mr. LINDLEY: May I take it from that reply that, if specific instances are brought to the notice of the Minister, he will take appropriate action in the matter?

Miss LAWRENCE: Yes, I have just said so.

GOVERNMENT PROPERTY (RATING).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 70 and 71.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether, in view of the opinion expressed at the recent conference of the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants that the Government do not pay their fair share of rates and that national economy ought not to be effected at the expense of local authorities, he will take action in this direction;
(2) whether, seeing that in the assessments of Post Office properties payments in respect of telephones are stabilised at the 1911 figure, and that since that time the Plymouth Corporation's service of telephones have increased by £2,000, but no additional contribution to the rates
has been made by the Government, he will cause a new assessment to be instituted?

Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: I have been asked to reply. The Government contributions in lieu of rates are arrived at by agreement with local authorities and are, I understand, generally accepted as fair. Representations have, however, been made to the Treasury by the Central Valuation Committee that on certain specific points, including inter alia the telephone question referred to by the hon. Member, the long standing arrangements based on Act of Parliament or agreement should now be revised. This matter is being considered, and the Treasury have promised to notify their conclusions to the Valuation Committee as soon as possible.

CHANNEL TUNNEL.

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE:
50. To ask the Prime Minister if he proposes to leave the decision on the Channel Tunnel scheme to a free vote of the House.

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: I beg to ask this question on behalf of my hon. Friend.

Mr. SPEAKER: Has the hon. Gentleman been asked to put the question on behalf of his hon. Friend?

Mr. WILLIAMS: Most certainly I have.

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir. I propose that the decision on this question shall be left to a free vote of the House.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: May I ask whether action, if necessary, will be taken on the decision?

The PRIME MINISTER: The vote will be a free vote, and the Government will certainly consider the result. If the result is against the Government, I am not going to say that the Government are going to change their mind after a thorough review of the situation.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: Are not the Government already pledged against the scheme, and have they not declared their decision?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN: May I ask the Prime Minister to tell us the business for Friday?

The PRIME MINISTER: On Friday, 4th July, the business will be the commencement of the Report Stage of the Road Traffic Bill.

Ordered,
That, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 15, the Motion relating to Channel Tunnel may be taken this day before Eleven of the Clock."—[The Prime Minister.]

NEW MEMBER AFFIRMED.

John McGovern, esquire, for Burgh of Glasgow (Shettleston Division).

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE C.

Mr. FREDERICL HALL reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the fallowing Members from Standing Committee C (added in respect of the Land Drainage (No. 2) Bill [Lords]): Mr. de Rothschild, Lieut.-Colonel Moore, and Mr. Remer; and had appointed in substitution: Sir Herbert Nield, Dr. Peters, and Viscount Wolmer.

Report to lie upon the Table.

FINANCE BILL.

Copy ordered, "of Clause 30 of the Finance Bill as proposed to be amended by the Government."—[Mr. Pethick-Lawrence.]

Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 147.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[15TH ALLOTTED DAY.]

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. ROBERT YOUNG in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1930.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH.

CLASS V.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £12,724,200, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1931, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Health, including Grants and other expenses in connection with Housing, certain Grants to Local Authorities, etc., Grants-in-Aid in respect of Benefits and Expenses of Administration under the National Health Insurance Acts, certain Expenses in connection with Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts, and other Services.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.
When I gave notice to the Minister of Health that the Opposition desired to raise certain questions on this Vote this afternoon, he sent me a message, which of course we accept, that he would be unable to be present owing to a public engagement, which none of us desire him to forgo. He is receiving an honorary degree at Leeds University, and therefore we quite understand his absence. I propose on this Vote to refer to the important question of housing. This is a very suitable time to review the position, because the Government have now had some 12 months' experience, and the country has had also 12 months' experience of the Government. I do not hesitate to say that the present position of housing in this country can only be described as grave and disquieting. Those who live in the various localities and take a natural interest in the housing needs, are fairly well aware of their own positions, but I do not think that the country, and perhaps all Members of this Committee, appreciate the lamentable position in which the housing situation has been permitted to relapse in the last 12 months. Men of all
parties and of none agree that in past years the Government, municipal authorities, building societies, public utility societies, and, not least, private enterprise, have made an unparalleled and unexampled effort to meet the housing situation, but I think we are all agreed upon the necessity of continuing our efforts under a well directed, financially sound and progressive policy, especially in the interests of the poor-paid workers, whose housing needs have still to be met. More than a year ago the Minister of Health said:
The real test is: 'Is there a house for the person who wants it?'
That is a rather severe test, but with that suggestion before me I propose to examine the present position. The unemployment among building trade workers furnishes an illuminating, though at the same time very disappointing, view of the situation. A year ago the Minister said there was no reason why a single operative in the building industry should be idle. According to the official returns, there are at this moment 32,000 more building operatives unemployed than there were at this time last year. On the 24th June, 1929, there were 67,742 insured persons recorded as unemployed in the building trade, and on 26th May, a few weeks ago, that figure stood at 101,066. If we examine the various trades in the building industry the figures are equally disappointing, and, I, think, disastrous. There are double the number of carpenters unemployed compared with a year ago, more than three times the number of brick-layers, and twice the number of plasterers; and if we look back a little farther, there are double the number of unemployed in the building trade compared with 1925. I do not hesitate to say that there has not been such a black record, nor anything approaching it, for many years.
The oracle to whom I have already referred, the Minister of Health, said the housing need was still sufficient to demand the employment of all the people within the industry. What do we find has been the result of 12 months of a Labour administration? The Government have by their policy and performance paralysed the building trade. They have checked the output of building, done nothing to reduce the cost of housing, and failed to make adequate or proper
provision for the poorer paid members of the community, whose housing needs are the greatest.
Let us examine the latest figures of houses completed. In this connection I am dealing only with State-assisted houses. During the 12 months ended 31st of May last, compared with the position a year ago, there was a decrease of over 8,000 houses completed and ranking for subsidy, a very unfortunate and regrettable state of affairs. The figures for each quarter reveal exactly the same state of affairs. In the quarter ended 30th September, 1929—and it is hardly believable—the number of State-assisted houses completed was 56,975; in the next quarter, to 31st December, the number had fallen to 14,521. In the quarter ending 31st March, 1930 the figures had fallen to 10,571, a truly regrettable state of affairs. The official figures for each month show the same course of events.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): Are these all the houses, or only the State-aided houses?

Sir K. WOOD: I have said three or four times that they are State-assisted. I shall deal with the houses which are not State-assisted in a few moments. In the month of March, 1929, 8,011 State-assisted houses were completed; in March this year the figure had fallen to 3,489. In the month of April, 1929, the number was 9,291, and in April this year 3,038. In May the number was 9,369 and in May of this year 4,377. The Parliamentary Secretary asked me whether I was referring simply to State-assisted houses. I am. I will not say yesterday but the day before I read the last debate on housing which took place under the Conservative Administration, and we were then told by the present Minister of Health that the Government had no concern with houses built by private enterprise. He went even further and said that it was not fair to include in the total for which the Government were taking credit the number of houses erected under the Chamberlain Act by private enterprise. My figures relate only to State-assisted houses. The position in London is equally serious. The figures in London show that for every five houses erected under the Conservative Administration two years ago, only one has been
erected under the Labour Government of to-day. One can certainly say that, if house building has not come to a standstill in London as a whole, it has ended in many of the boroughs, and I include boroughs which are capable of providing sites and land for houses. Londoners will hardly credit my statement when I say that this year, apart from the efforts of the London County Council, only 521 State-assisted houses have been erected in London between June, 1929, and May, 1930. What about future prospects? I will deal now with the figures relating to houses under construction, and again I am dealing with State-assisted houses.

Mr. ALPASS: What about the boroughs?

Sir K. WOOD: I think the hon. Member for Central Bristol had better think of something else, because his interruption will not give any satisfaction to the people in London who badly want houses. What are the figures for houses under construction? They are certainly very depressing. In March, 1929, there were 65,018 houses under construction. In March this year that figure had actually gone down to 28,177. In April, 1929, the number of houses under construction was 62,441, and in April, 1930, the figures were 30,888. All those figures have been given in answers to questions in this House. In May, 1929, the number of houses under construction was 68,522, and in May this year that number had gone down to 33,332. The figures for houses under construction to October, 1927, were 48,232, and the latest figures show the number to be 33,322 under construction.
I come to another equally important aspect of this question, a subject upon which we heard a great deal from our Labour critics during the last Administration. I refer to the question of rents. I want to call the attention of the Committee to the important question of housing costs and to what is revealed by the official figures. Those figures reveal a gradual and substantial reduction on the price and cost of houses under the previous Administration but that has been definitely arrested, and under the present Administration, so far as the great majority of workers are concerned, and quite apart from slum dwellers, not only has there been no general reduction in rent during the last year or
any reduction in the cost of houses, but there is no prospect of any of the rents being materially reduced; and the Labour Government has not put forward any proposals which are likely to assist in this direction.
In March, 1926, the average price of a common parlour house was £448. In March, 1929, it was £336, a very considerable reduction. In March this year the figure was £338. The result is that the Administration which was returned to help the people to obtain cheaper houses is giving less assistance to those who need it the most. At the present time we ought seriously to consider the burden of the increasing charges which are affecting the national Exchequer. One of the first things which the Minister of Health did was to revert to the old proportion of the Wheatley subsidy for houses.

Mr. PALMER: Hear, hear.

4.0 p.m.

Sir K. WOOD: The hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Palmer) cheers the statement that the housing subsidy has been increased. This has been done in times of stringency, and in this way the burdens of the nation have been added to by the Government. I do not think that a large number of people would complain if there were further charges on the Exchequer for a properly devised and well-conceived housing scheme. The present Government have added to the cost of housing, and what has been the result? More unemployment in the building trade, less housing, and no decrease in cost or rent relief to the workers of the country. But let me say this. There are three hopeful features in the present housing situation. I am glad to say, for instance, that, as regards the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, the figures show an improvement. They show that more authorities are recognising the value of the Act, and taking advantage of it. A few days ago we had returns in respect of the Housing (Rural Workers) Act. On 31st March last, work was in progress on 771 houses in that month, and 253 houses had been completed. There is, therefore, some bright feature in the figures, and it shows a considerable improvement since March, 1929, when 594 houses were in course of construction and only 210 had been completed. I can understand Members of
the Committee saying that it does not show a great advance in meeting the needs of rural housing, but the fact remains that it is the only Statute which is in existence to give assistance as far as this aspect of rural housing is concerned, and we have not heard a whisper or suggestion of anything from the present Government, apart from the slum proposals, as to how far they will render further assistance to rural housing.
What is the brightest spot? The most hopeful feature in the present situation is provided by the returns of houses erected by private enterprise without State assistance. The number of sum houses with a rateable value not exceeding £78, or £105 in the Metropolitan district, erected during the six months ended September last, was 39,298, and during the six months ended March last, 53,393—a very remarkable and welcome improvement. Those, I understand, are the latest figures, which the Minister of Health supplied in reply to a question by me. I hope that Members of the Committee opposite will see how much we owe to private enterprise in the housing conditions of this country, and I hope that they will not venture again to decry private enterprise in house building. The other hopeful and satisfactory feature is the great aid which the building societies have given. It is a very remarkable thing that in the returns which were furnished to me a week ago, the total amount which had been advanced on mortgage by the building societies of the country from 1901 to 1929 was the colossal sum of £607,000,000. If we examine the latest figures available, namely, for the years 1928 and 1929, we see an equally remarkable and satisfactory result. In 1928, the building societies advanced to people in order to become owners of their own homes more than £56,000,000. In 1929, the sum was increased to £74,000,000, and, as far as I can observe from the statements of the chairmen of the various building societies at their annual meetings which have recently been held, there is every reason for assenting to the view that in the present year another considerable contribution has been made by them.
Is it too much for me to say that these two great aids to national housing needs, private building and the great contribution
of the building societies, have in no small measure this year saved the housing situation, and that but for these two remarkable features the year's record has been one of disappointment and a definite check in housing progress? What is the responsibility of the Government in this matter? In the first place, I would observe that their favourite excuses are world causes and not possessing a sufficient Parliamentary majority. I generally read, as I know a good many hon. Members read, each month or each quarter, the record of housing progress in other countries. I have not observed that in other countries there has been any check on housing progress, and I cannot think, therefore, that world causes are any explanation. I desire to repeat an interjection which the Parliamentary Secretary has just made, so that we may have it on record. She says that there has been no check. Then as to not possessing a Parliamentary majority, I would say, in connection with that very well-worn excuse, that everything the Government have asked for housing has been fully and freely given by this House. What have they done? In the first place, two things. The results, I agree, require another characterisation. What are the two Parliamentary steps they have taken? They have restored a portion only of the Wheatley subsidy. They have also introduced some slum legislation, but it was a remarkable thing that the Minister of Health was either not ready, or delayed the introduction of these, his main housing proposals until 27th March this year, and the Second Reading of the Bill was not taken until 7th April. No excuses about obstruction or matters of that kind apply, at any rate, to those proposals. As a matter of fact, they were not even suggested to the local authorities themselves when they were taken into consultation, as the Secretary of State for Scotland knows. They were not made to the local authorities themselves until practically only a few days before the Bill was brought into this House.

Miss LAWRENCE: No.

Sir K. WOOD: If the hon. Member likes to make it a month, she can.

Miss LAWRENCE: No.

Sir K. WOOD: Whatever date they went to the local authorities, it makes no difference. The date which really matters is the date of the introduction of the proposals to this House which, I again assert, was 27th March, as far as the actual Bill was concerned, and 7th April when we had the Second heading—comparatively only a few weeks ago. What was the consequence? The loud boasts of the Minister of Health about his new legislation, his repeated hints of larger subsidies have undoubtedly led to the restriction of building by the local authorities, and, in the result, we find ourselves at this moment with housing restricted to slum clearance legislation not on the Statute Book, and I do not think I am putting it too high when I say that little further housing contribution or mitigation of unemployment in the building industry is likely this year. What has been the unfortunate and disastrous consequence of this kind of policy? Nearly 40,000 fewer people have obtained new housing accommodation in the year of the Labour Government than in the previous year. We are over 8,000 new houses the poorer.

Miss LAWRENCE: No.

Sir K. WOOD: The Labour Government have succeeded in depriving thousands of members of families in England and Wales of new houses which might have been in existence to-day. I say that in the year of the Labour Government—and I want to see whether my hon. Friend the Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) will agree with this—there have not been even sufficient State-assisted houses built to meet the ordinary growth of the population and to replace the wastage of old buildings, and, if it had not been for private enterprise, the housing shortage in the year of the Socialist Government would not have been reduced. An army of over 100,000 building operatives walk the streets looking for the work of building houses, which, certainly in many quarters, is still badly needed, rents have not been reduced, the slums still remain, and the re-planning of our town and country has made no adequate advance. It has been due to the weak, hesitating, doubtful policy of the Minister of Health.
I very well remember the late Mr. Wheatley, from the back bench opposite, when the Minister of Health introduced his proposals which only restored the Wheatley subsidy in part, using words to this effect: "If people believe in a subsidy, if you think that subsidies are going to bring more houses, why is it that you are going to restore only half the amount that was inserted in my Bill? If you believe in subsidies, and say that there has been no building under the Chamberlain Act because the subsidy was stopped, why did you not restore it?" That is a half-hearted policy which gives no encouragement; and, being halfhearted it has the result that that kind of policy always brings with it. This has been a barren year. There have been a few more doles——

Miss LAWRENCE: No; it has been a very good year.

Sir K. WOOD: There has been the Act which broke the Government's pledges to widows in need; there is dearer coal for the consumer; there are heavier burdens on industry; nearly 2,000,000 of our fellow-citizens are registered as unemployed; and, for the houseless and the body housed, there is a policy without vision and a performance only distinguished by failure and lack of resolution and courage.

Mr. E. D. SIMON: We have listened to a very powerful attack on the administration of the Housing Acts by the present Government during the last 12 months, and I think that eveyone who studies the facts will agree that the situation is very serious. Personally, I think that the most serious aspect of the situation is the shower of "Noes" that have come from the Parliamentary Secretary. I really cannot understand the optimism with which she and the Minister, whose absence to-day I very much regret, regard the present housing situation. Of course, I do not think——

Miss LAWRENCE: My interjections were due to the fact that the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman included private enterprise at one period, and did not include it at another.

Mr. SIMON: I think that the hon. Lady was wrong. In my opinion, the right hon. Gentleman's figures, as far as I could understand them, were all correct,
or certainly a very large proportion of them were correct. I believe the situation to be exceedingly serious, and I do not think that hon. Members opposite realise, and I am quite sure that the hon. Lady does not realise, quite how serious the position is. I want to deal with that one point. There are a good many other points in regard to the administration of housing with which one would like to deal, in particular the question whether the right tenants are getting the houses; but this one question of the number of houses that are being built and the amount of employment that is being given is so overwhelmingly more important that I want to confine myself to that one point.
I want to go back a little further than the right hon. Gentleman has gone, because the history of this matter for the last six years is extraordinarily interesting, and, I think, rather ominous from the point of view of the ability of the State to take the long view in regard to an important problem of this sort, and to give its assistance in an effective way. With the passing of the Chamberlain Act in 1923, the large-scale building by private enterprise of assisted houses was begun. I am not going to deal with unassisted houses this afternoon, because, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) has said, and as I think the Minister of Health has said on many occasions, the Government have no influence on the building of unassisted houses—

Sir K. WOOD: My point was that the Minister, when he was in Opposition, desired to exclude private enterprise, but I claim for the Conservative party that one of their great contributions to the housing situation was their revival of private enterprise in the building of houses in this country.

Mr. SIMON: I do not want to go into the question of private enterprise, and I am not differentiating between private enterprise and public enterprise, but between assisted schemes and unassisted schemes. The important question is as to what has been done by successive Governments by means of subsidies, which, after all, have been the effective driving force in this matter, to increase the building of houses. We had the Chamberlain Act of 1923, which got private enterprise going on assisted schemes on a large
scale. The three following years, from 1924 to 1927, showed an extraordinarily successful development; and then, from 1927 to 1930, we had three most depressing years, just as depressing as the others were good. What has been the cause of that?
First of all, the Chamberlain Act of 1923 got private enterprise going with assisted schemes. Then, under the Act of 1924, we had, first of all, the subsidy to local authorities, and, secondly, the so-called bargain or treaty with the building trade. Mr. Wheatley looked ahead for 15 years and made arrangements which included a quasi guarantee that, if the building trade would so increase their numbers as to be able to build, as he wanted them to build, 225,000 houses a year, they would be guaranteed employment for 15 years on that basis. These three things—the Chamberlain subsidy, the Wheatley subsidy, and the treaty with the building trade—had a very remarkable effect indeed for three years. Measuring it by the number of houses built, and rounding off the figures very considerably, in 1924 there were 50,000 assisted houses built, in 1925, 100,000, in 1926, 150,000, and in 1927, 200,000. These three things taken together, therefore, increased the number of assisted houses built by 50,000 a year, from 50,000 to over 200,000. Actually, during the year ending on the 30th September, 1927, 212,000 assisted houses were finished, a very magnificent piece of building.
Then it was decided by right hon. Gentlemen on the Conservative benches to cut the subsidy, and then began the three bad years that followed, namely, from 1927 to 1930. I do not think that anyone can deny that that cut in the subsidy caused a sudden slump. Instead of 200,000 assisted houses being built, we had about 100,000. The year after that the figure was again about 100,000, or rather more, and it was again 100,000 in the year ending on the 30th September, 1929. The present Government had been in power at that time for six months. What happened after September of last year? The Chamberlain subsidy disappeared, we were left with only the Wheatley subsidy, and during the last six months we have been building assisted houses, not at the rate of 100,000 a year or of 200,000 a year, but of only 50,000
a year. [Interruption.] That is an absolutely correct figure. It is no use the hon. Lady demurring. If she will look at the figures for the period from the 1st October to the 31st March, she will find that assisted houses have been built at the rate of rather less than 50,000 a year, as against the bargain with the building trade in 1924 to work up to 225,000 assisted houses a year for 15 years. It was the fault of hon. Members on the Conservative benches that the number fell from 200,000 to 100,000 for two years, but from last September the full responsibility is clearly on the present Government, and they are to-day building assisted houses at less than a quarter of the rate for which they bargained with the building trade in 1924, and which they actually built in the year ending 30th September, 1927. These are facts which cannot be denied.
That is as regards house-building. As regards employment, it moved, generally speaking, parallel with building. The actual number of people employed in the building and allied trades increased each year after 1924 as a result of the three causes of which I have spoken. Each year about 50,000 more men were employed in those trades, and in the year 1927 there were actually 150,000 more men employed in the building trades than there were in 1924. That, again, is a most remarkable achievement, showing how quickly people could be got into the trade, and how well the trade unions lived up to their bargain and allowed dilutees, or whatever they may be called—new people—to come into the trade. Since then, the number employed has fallen, not to the same extent as the figures for housing, but by about 30,000, and I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich is right when he says that it would have fallen a good deal more if it had not been for the remarkable rise in the amount of building by private enterprise which, fortunately, has taken place.

Sir TUDOR WALTERS: Unassisted.

Mr. SIMON: Yes, unassisted. The other item of importance in this connection is that of costs. The A.3 house, in 1923, cost about £350. The Chamberlain subsidy put it up to £400, and the Wheatley subsidy to £450. The subsidies did undoubtedly have that effect; but
gradually, as the building trade has expanded, the price has come down, and it is now about £350 or £340, the lowest that it has ever been since the War. Now, therefore, the present Government have a tremendous opportunity. The building trade has been built up until it is capable, as it has shown, of building 200,000 assisted houses a year; the cost of building these houses is down to the lowest figure that it has been since the War; and the Government have nothing to do except to go ahead and build houses.
One would have thought that the first thing that the Minister of Health would have said, under these conditions, would have been: "In 1927, 212,000 assisted houses were built; let me see if I can beat that record, and at least get up to the forecast of Mr. Wheatley in his White Paper of 1924, and build 225,000 assisted houses." We are at the present time building at the rate of rather under 50,000 assisted houses a year, and the most serious aspect of the matter, as it seems to me, is the attitude taken by the Minister of Health and the Parliamentary Secretary. Instead of demanding emergency measures, they keep on hiding behind the unassisted private enterprise houses, and saying that, after all, a lot of houses are being built. In an answer which the Minister gave to me the other day, he tried to hide the figures in that way by taking credit for unassisted private enterprise houses. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, in replying, will take this matter into consideration, and will confine herself to the question of assisted houses, in regard to which alone the Government can have any influence. It she has not the figures at hand already, I hope she will take an opportunity of looking into them, and seeing whether it is not the case that less than 50,000 subsidised assisted houses a year have been built since the beginning of October last.
I do not want to say anything more, except that this is a very perturbing instance of the difficulties of State Socialism. Here is, I should say, the greatest experiment in State Socialism that this country has ever attempted, apart from the Post Office. It was attempted on imaginative and, I think, fairly businesslike lines by the Labour Government of 1924. It was carried on very successfully for three years, and
then, this great machine having been built up, people having been attracted into the trade, and the supplies of building materials having been developed so as to enable a programme of 225,000 houses a year to be quite easily carried out, first of all hon. Members on the Conservative Benches let that programme slump to 100,000 a year, and then the present Government, to my astonishment and dismay, instead of immediately adopting emergency measures or anything that was necessary to get back to 200,000 a year, actually let it slump down to 50,000, and then try to hide behind unassisted private enterprise and refuse to face the real seriousness and the real difficulties of the situation.
I believe the Ministry of Health is such an overgrown organisation that no Minister can be expected to have very much time to think about these pressing problems—he has so many things to do. But this is far and away the most important task the right hon. Gentleman has to face, and I believe it has been extraordinarily and very seriously neglected during recent months. The Bill upstairs has its merits. There are one or two good ideas in it, and it will help in certain directions, but like most Bills introduced by the present Government it is excessively timid. I am convinced that it is not going to increase the building of assisted houses in any really substantial number, and, if hon. Members opposite examine it, I think they will say the same. It is not even going to look at the problem of increasing the 50,000 assisted houses up to 200,000. I beg the hon. Lady to take the matter into serious consideration. The Bill is very limited by the financial Resolution. Whenever we have moved Amendments to make it more effective, they have been rejected. The hon. Lady has misunderstood the figures and has not realised the position. I hope she will talk it over with the Minister and that, during the remaining stages of the Bill, some steps will be taken. I am sure Members on these benches—I should think Members all over the House—will support them in taking some measures to get back from this miserable figure of 50,000 to something approaching the goal that they set before them of 225,000 assisted houses a year.

Miss LEE: I hope, before the debate ends, we are going to pass from a mere
academic and more or less barren recital of how many houses were built one year and how many the next and to try to understand what accounts for these figures which were recited to us by the late Parliamentary Secretary. It is true that fewer houses have been built during the last year than for many years. Enough houses are not, being built to meet the needs of the people, but I beg Members on all sides of the Committee to realise that, in many districts where the need for housing is greatest, the houses that can be built under the present financial terms are already more than enough, and in those areas houses are standing empty. Does the hon. Gentleman who is now leaving the Chamber want to bring before the House proposals for forcing those local authorities to go on building houses in areas where there are already empty houses because the people cannot pay the rents, or will he genuinely co-operate with us in trying to get to the root of the difficulty, which is the rent problem. Already upstairs there is a Measure which will enable houses to be built cheaper than at present, and the most useful contribution that Members who are genuinely concerned to have more houses built could make is to assist us to get the Slum Clearance Bill on to the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment in order that local authorities will be able to go forward with building houses that people can afford to buy.
Some mention has been made of building prices. If hon. Members opposite, instead of obstructing the Consumers Council Bill, had widened it in order to include building material, there again they would have been not merely scoring cheap debating points but they would have been genuinely co-operating in an effort to get houses built at prices that people could afford to pay. It is one of the most distressing features of our national life in Scotland to see the effort that is being made by working class people to live in the houses that the party opposite want us to continue building. They make the effort on an ever increasing scale but they are forced to leave them, and they are being rejected from them, because they cannot pay the rent, and the central problem that I want to stress, and the main appeal that I want to address to the Minister and to those
responsible in assisting him in his work, is to tackle the problem of rent. I know they are trying to do it in the Slum Clearance Bill, but there is also the problem of the rental of houses already built. Are we to suffer the cheap gibes from Members opposite about nothing being done to reduce rentals, or are we to give them the opportunity of voting in some way or other for a reduction of rentals of existing houses.
It is not my job to suggest ways in which that can be done, but I would beg the Minister to consider, especially for Scotland, the whole question of our local rating, because, whenever we attempt to get cheaper rents, we are told by local authorities that it can only be done by asking people who are very poor, and who are living in bad houses, to pay more rent, and I see no way out of the dilemma unless the Ministry is proposing to take housing right out of the schemes of the local authorities, to leave them with the roads and the thousand and one other things that they are carrying through, which are imposing as heavy a rating obligation as can be borne, and let us make housing a mater of national emergency. Let us make it a great national scheme, subsidised and financed completely from the State, and not impeded by Tory local authorities who hold back our schemes at the same time that their representatives in this place gibe at us for not carrying on the schemes.
I think the time is long overdue when our Government, in all its Departments, should call the bluff of Members opposite. Many of us are becoming very tired of being gibed about inadequate pensions and inadequate house building by these very people who for five years had every opportunity of doing those things and abused the opportunity. Furthermore, even while those gibes are being made, none know better than Members opposite that the real economic power lies in their hands still and in those of their friends and not in those of the Labour Government, and that it is thanks to their policy——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dunnico): The hon. Member must confine her speech to the Vote before the Committee.

Miss LEE: I apologise for following the example set me. I think it will be agreed that the right hon. Gentleman
talked about pensions and mining and all the rest of it. I should have liked an opportunity to point out who was really responsible for these bad conditions.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman did make a passing reference to these things, but before I could stop him put himself in order.

Miss LEE: The central point of our house building is rent. It is no use going on building more houses at rentals that people cannot afford and I hope that, not only in the new Bill which is coming forward for houses to be built in the future, but for new houses at present up, the Ministry will bring forward some bold, encouraging scheme which will bring rents into some relationship with the wages that our people are earning and, if they do that, one of two things will happen, either substantial advantages will be given to our rack-rented people, or we will call the bluff of Members opposite and show exactly how much all this assumed concern for the people whose distress is largely of their making is worth.

Sir T. WALTERS: I entirely concur in the figures given by my hon. Friend, and also in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench. But surely there must be some fundamental reason for the drop in house building. There must be something quite apart from small changes in the subsidies, and even changes in the Government. I think the real reason why house building is slackening off is that, of the kind of house we have been laying ourselves out to build in the last few years, namely, houses of the standard, of the Tudor Walters Report, the supply has almost reached the demand. Of the three-bedroomed house, the large house, at a rent which only a workman earning very good wages can pay, I think we have really built almost as many as the country require. I think that is the principal reason why house building is slackening off. That brings us to another question which I think is now one of supreme importance. That is the provision of the cheap house, the housing of the slum dwellers, the casual workers and the poorly paid members of our community, who are unfortunately very large in number. I do not think it is any use attempting to stimulate, by subsidies or by any
thing else, the building of the houses that we have been building for the last two years. They had a rent of 10s., 12s., 14s., 16s., a week. I was largely responsible for the standard of building set out in the Tudor Walters report. I believed after the War that we were going to have great prosperity, with increased wages and full employment, and that it was desirable to build houses adapted to the needs of highly paid workers, but the facts are very different from the imagination and it is obvious now that we must provide for other sections of our population who want to pay a rent of 5s. or 6s. a week or something of that kind, and to whom 10s., 12s., 14s., is an absolute impossibility. I think this problem must be faced, and I believe it is capable of solution. I am engaged myself at present in building a large number of houses which can be let on an economic basis of 6s. a week. That is getting somewhere near a solution of the problem.

Miss LEE: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us a little more about them?

Sir T. WALTERS: I will develop it at a later stage. I want to get at some point of view, at some principle on which I think the operations of the future can be carried forward. In the first place, if you are to build a cheap house you must take care that it is a good house. It must not be an insanitary house, and it must not be a hut or a hovel or something which is going to degenerate into a slum. If you want to build small houses cheaply, you must build them on a large scale; you must build them by mass production. You must organise and control the method of building and the supply of materials, and take care that you are not exploited in that connection. You must co-ordinate the activities of the various districts of the country. You do not want to build houses in districts where they are not needed, thereby diminishing the supply of materials and increasing the cost of houses built in districts where they are needed. You must survey the requirements of the whole country, and you must include in your purview slum clearance, the provision of cheap houses to replace slums, and the provision of rural houses at a rent which the rural workers can pay. You must make an exact survey of the whole situation.
I will go back to the position immediately after the War. It was realised just before the end of the War that there would be a great shortage of houses after the War, and the Government of the day set up a commission of inquiry to survey the whole situation. The result of that inquiry was a report which advised the building of 1,000,000 houses. It set up the standard of houses. The recommendations of that report have now been carried out. You have obtained 1,000,000 houses of the standard required. Now you want to face the other situation, the new situation—slum clearance and cheap houses. I believe that if you had a co-ordinated scheme and brought under survey all the resources which the country possesses—even now in the ranks of the building trade there is a sufficient number of skilled men—it would be possible to build, in addition to the ordinary programme, say, 150,000 to 200,000 houses a year for the next five years of the kind which I have described, adapted to those whose wages are so low that they cannot pay a high rent. This eventually would be the best and indeed the only method of clearing the slums.
How is this to be done? We certainly do not want to wait for the appointment of another Royal Commission. We have all the information already available if only we will use it. The centre of the whole business is the Ministry of Health. I have very great respect for the staff and the efficiency of the Ministry of Health, but they have many and varied duties to perform. They have to solve all kinds of problems. I am absolutely satisfied that you will never deal efficiently with this problem of cheap houses and slum clearance until you have constituted a separate and definite department from the Ministry of Health—a proper National Housing Board—which can take this matter in hand and put some dynamic into it. The Bill which is now upstairs in Committee, though it contains many merits, has not an ounce of dynamic in it, nothing to make it operative to compel local authorities to do anything. It does not put local authorities into the way of doing anything. I am satisfied that just as you needed a board for the Port of London, an Electricity Board, and the setting up of a Colliery Board, you must have a National Housing Board with four or
five men upon it who understand the question and will insist upon something being done.
I cannot see any reason why 100,000 men connected with the building trade should be out of work and be receiving the dole when there is this vast problem of useful, necessary, and urgent work waiting to be done. Why are we inventing schemes of unemployment. Why are we building ridiculous pavilions opposite the house in which I live in Hyde Park which are an eyesore to me and a nuisance to everybody? Why are we doing things like this? Why do we not build houses to rehouse the slum dwellers? I do not want to say anything too emphatic or to be too drastic or to condemn anyone, but it is almost a crime that the resources of this country which are now available should not be utilised for providing the houses which are so urgently needed. I believe that this can be done very cheaply. I do not know whether hon. Members have ever taken the trouble to inquire what rents are paid for slum dwellings, for cellar kitchens, for two rooms in a basement, and have also considered the value for commercial purposes of sites now covered by slums which ought to be cleared and set free for business purposes, and how much cheaper it is to build upon a large scale than upon a small scale. If any hon. Members came to my office I could show them figures in regard to the difference between a contract, say, for 10 houses and a contract for 2,000 houses which might stagger them. It is not that builders or builders' merchants are more greedy and avaricious than other people, but unless they can see their way to large schemes, continuous schemes, they cannot bring the cost of production down to the lowest basis. Schemes must be extended over a term of years. It is no use talking about one year. When the late Mr. Wheatley set out to solve the problem he went in for a 15 years' programme.
I should go in for a 20 years' programme. I believe that if a 20 years' programme was carefully laid down on the lines which I am suggesting and all the resources of the trade, and the materials were organised, that within that 20 years you could abolish every slum in the country. There need not be
a single skilled workman in the building trade unemployed. I am certain that the timorous operations which are being pursued by the present Government will land nowhere, but will end in disaster. I do not want to condemn them too severely. I know their difficulties well. They are apprehensive that if they launch a bold scheme they will not be supported. I believe that they are as anxious as we are to get houses built. In many respects both the Ministry of Health and the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary have shown zeal and understanding. I feel satisfied that they would have the support of this House and the support of the country if they put forward a scheme on the lines I have suggested, and would not have need to be afraid to be the leaders in the attack. I implore them, before it is too late, to face this problem, to realise what are its difficulties and at the same time to realise that all these difficulties are capable of solution.

Mr. T. LEWIS: I think that the Minister in charge of this Vote has every reason to be satisfied in the main with the development of the debate. She need not pay too much attention to the criticisms of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Woad). When I heard his remarks with regard to the housing policy of the Government, I thought that an election was pending. I always understood that the right hon. Member for West Woolwich was a very bold person, but I hardly thought that he could place the crimes of the late Government upon the shoulders of the present Government in an endeavour to make political capital. Those of us who have had considerable experience of local work know that the threatened withdrawal of the subsidy has had a very marked effect upon the policies of councils throughout the country. The reduction in the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich is largely due, I think, to the threatened reduction in the subsidy. We can congratulate the Government upon having partially restored the subsidy which, I believe, will have a marked effect upon building in the future.
There are many points in connection with housing which require the attention
of the Government. If I were in the position of Minister of Health, I should accept the policy foreshadowed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Sir T. Walters) who is an undoubted authority upon housing. I should accept what he has put forward for a bold comprehensive national scheme of housing, because I think that the facts which have been given by him with regard to mass production are irrefutable. We know even in a small way that the amount of a tender for say 500 or 600 houses is far different from a tender for 400 houses. We should also have control of the building materials. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that building factors are not concerned with this matter. I believe that the people who control the materials have been important factors with regard to the cost of building. This fact may not have been the occasion for the whole of the high cost of building, but I believe that, the cost could be brought down enormously if we had a big national housing scheme, with control of building materials and direct employment of labour, thereby not leaving the matter to the ordinary contractors of this country. That is the direction in which the Government ought to proceed.
I think that from their speeches this afternoon, Members of the Liberal party are sincere in their attitude upon housing. We ought to accept that position, because if we could claim them as being in earnest in this matter we could say that we were not in a minority, at any rate, on this question. Unless we do something in regard to the housing problem, we are in for very serious times indeed. Even in a town like that from which I come, we find that, although we have built something like 3,000 houses, we have still 3,000 applicants on our waiting lists who cannot afford to pay the high, and sometimes excessive, rents they are being called upon to pay. I do not think that the need has been met with regard to houses let at rents about 10s. to 12s., but I am certain that the great demand is for the smaller type of houses for people who can afford to pay 5s. or 6s. a week. We are finding that people who have taken houses at 12s. or 13s. a week are gradually drifting back again to slum areas, because with wages
somewhere in the region of £2 5s. or £2 10s. a week they cannot afford to pay 12s. or 15s. a week as rent.
5.0 p.m.
I wish to ask the Minister whether the Government will consider the question of lower rents, even if it means larger subsidies, and also whether they will consider the question of the equalisation of rents. I understand that as a council we have no power to equalise rents. It is very unfair after you have built houses which cost £800 to £900, for which you have to charge a certain rent, if afterwards you can build houses of a similar type for £500 or £600, the persons occupying the former should still be saddled with rents based on a charge of £800 or £900. There ought to be some means of equalisation. I know that it would be difficult to charge more of those persons who are already paying a lower rent, but there ought to be some means taken, even, as I have already said, if it means more subsidies, to bring about equalisation in order to bring down rents to something like 9s. or 9s. 6d. The problem of rent is exceedingly important, and the Ministry will be well advised to give it serious attention. I know it may appear that we are, perhaps, unduly criticising. I know that our friends are at the Ministry, and I give them credit for knowing more about the particular problem on which they are engaged than we do. It does seem at times to those of us who are novices in some respects, although not novices in looking at the matter from the local point of view, that sufficient attention is not being paid to certain phases of the housing problem. If the Government are paying sufficient attention to those phases, then we are not getting the results. I wish particularly to refer to certain features of the housing problem that must be dealt with in connection with the building of new houses. I wish the Ministry would take some action in regard to the excessive rents of decontrolled houses. This is a very serious problem. When a house becomes decontrolled and it is a house worth, say, £500 or £600, it at once goes up in value by £100 to £150, and the rent goes up from, say, 8s. to 15s. and even £1. The Ministry would do well if they would take steps to deal with that matter. We have nothing but persistent
refusals to deal with the question. Within a month or two months of the present Government taking office questions were raised respecting the rents of decontrolled houses. On the 24th July, 1929, a question was put to the Prime Minister, and he replied that he could not hold out any prospects of amending legislation during that year.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member cannot discuss on this Vote anything which involves legislation.

Mr. LEWIS: I agree that it would involve legislation, but it is a very serious problem, and it is very difficult to discriminate.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must discriminate to keep within the rules of order.

Mr. LEWIS: I merely mention that in passing, coupled with the hope that the Ministry of Health will take stock of the situation with regard to rents because it is a very important factor in the housing problem. Another feature which requires attention is the excessive rents which sub-tenants have to pay. All sorts of extortion are going on at the present time. I mention these facts as showing the urgent need of building smaller houses, which was referred to by the right hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth, which might be let at 6s. a week. There is a case in my own district, and such cases could be multiplied by thousands, of a house the pre-War rent of which was 8s. a week, which is let at the present time for £2 8s. a week, and 19 people are living in the house. The charges in that house are 16s. 2d. for two rooms, 11s. 6d. for one room, 10s. for two rooms, and 10s. for another room. The Ministry must have in their possession a mass of information regarding the terrible overcrowding that is going on in connection with sub-letting. I obtained particulars regarding this overcrowding in my own town. I took particulars with regard to 4,307 houses. The number of houses where sub-letting took place was 1,795, while the number of sub-tenants was 2,866. That is in Southampton, which is sometimes supposed to be an up-to-date town. These particulars refer not merely to working-class wards, but even to portions of wards that are termed middle-class. The small middle-class
houses are terribly overcrowded. There are cases of houses of a rental of £40 to £50 a year which have been turned into two and three flats at a rental of 30s. to £2 for each flat. Enormous profiteering and overcrowding is going on. In that town we have built 3,000 houses, but we have still 3,000 on our waiting list.
The facts which I have quoted give proof of the great amount of overcrowding that is going on, but we are told that nothing can be done. How is it that nothing can be done? I believe that if the Government would bring in a Bill——

Dr. VERNON DAVIES: Order!

Mr. LEWIS: The hon. Member need not bother about calling me to order. I am willing to obey the Chair. Another important matter is the letting of furnished rooms. Here, again, we have had a reply that nothing can be done. I do not understand why nothing can be done in these eases. We are told that the people who have any grievance can go to the County Court. People get short shrift at the County Court. Moreover, most people do not understand the business of going to the County Court. That is why I think that a fair rents court might be set up.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must distinguish between Measures which require legislation and matters which lie within the administrative powers of the Ministry of Health. On this Vote only matters are in order which come under the administration of the Ministry of Health.

Mr. LEWIS: I understand that legislation cannot be referred to, but it is extremely difficult on a matter of this kind not to get involved in the question of legislation. Coming from meetings where matters are not so strict as they are here, one is inclined to lapse. Could not the Ministry take some steps in order to avoid this overcrowding and the flagrant over-charging for furnished rooms and lodgings? I should like to refer to slum clearance schemes. In the OFFICIAL REPORT of 25th June particulars are given of the number of slum clearance schemes confirmed during the period 1927, 1928 and 1929, and we find that from 1st April, 1929, to 31st March, 1930, no slum clearance schemes were confirmed.

Viscountess ASTOR: Shame!

Mr. LEWIS: That is due, to some extent, to the fact that legislation is pending. I presume that I am in order in making reference to legislation that is pending. I think the Ministry made a big mistake in advising local authorities not to proceed with their slum clearance schemes because a new Measure was to be introduced. The replies given on 25th June showed that 17 slum clearance schemes were confirmed in the previous year but no schemes were confirmed during the last 12 months. Surely the slum clearance schemes might have proceeded. I understand that the reason given is that on account of the Derby case the local authorities could not go on with their slum clearance schemes. The great bulk of the slum clearance schemes would not have been affected by the decision in the Derby case, and they might have been allowed to proceed. I raised the question recently in regard to my own borough, where we had five schemes that were held up. Of course, a reactionary council are quite willing to hold up a scheme when they are told by an official of the Ministry of Health: "I would not proceed with the scheme, because there is to be a new slum clearance Bill brought in." That means not merely delay for six months but probably for two years. If the Opposition adopt their usual tactics in regard to the Housing (No. 2) Bill, it will probably be another six months before that Measure gets through. It is quite possible that a delay of two years will have been caused by the action of the Ministry in holding up schemes, and I am at a loss to understand why they took that action and why in regard to cases that were not affected by the Derby decision, where the local authority were going to use the whole of the land for the purpose of building houses and for slum improvements, they did not allow those authorities to get along with their work. I hope that the result of to-day's debate will be a speeding up of housing, and I hope that the Government will take the serious advice of the right hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth and have a national housing scheme on broad and big lines.

Dr. DAVIES: I sympathise with the hon. Member in the difficulty in avoiding reference to legislation. That is one of
the difficulties which confronts us when in Supply we have to criticise the Government on any of their administrative actions. I am not certain that the right hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Sir T. Walters) was strictly in order, because his suggested national housing scheme would require a certain amount of legislation. I listened with awe and respect and I feared to intervene knowing that with his greater experience he would hardly dare to presume upon his knowledge of the procedure of the House to tempt the Deputy-Chairman to call him to order.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Sir T. Walters) gave no indication that his scheme required legislation, and consequently I could not call him to order.

Dr. DAVIES: I am afraid that, under the present administrative powers of the Ministry of Health, it would not be possible to proceed with the remedy proposed by the right hon. Member. While it is difficult to avoid references to legislation, it is the duty of the Opposition to criticise the Government for their administration and for their lack of doing things which they might have done. Of all the failures of the Government I think their most colossal failure has been in regard to housing. When the present Government was formed and the Minister of Health took up his high position we did not forget that the right hon. Gentleman was not taking up that position as a novice. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health under the late Mr. Wheatley, who brought in the Wheatley Housing Act. Therefore, the present Minister of Health came to the Ministry with a very large knowledge of housing. He must have had a great deal to do with the formation of the Housing Bill of 1924 and he had something to do with the agreement that was made with the building trades at that time.
The right hon. Gentleman started from a very favourable position, really from a pedestal from which he could survey the land and proceed with a great scheme of housing. During his years in opposition he had many opportunities, which he exercised, of challenging the right hon. Member for Edgbaston (Mr. Chamberlain) and the right hon. Member for
West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) on their dealing with housing and the subsidy. He had taken a very active and special interest in the problem for five or six years before reaching office and naturally we expected that we should get a marked and definite progress in the building of houses, exceeding that which took place when we were in office and when we succeeded in establishing a record in house construction which has not so far been approached. Our actions never met with the approval of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, and naturally we expected that with his experience and power he would show us what could be done. What has been the result of the past 12 months? We have the shocking tale, so faithfully and truly recited by the right hon. Member for West Woolwich, showing how the number of houses has not increased but decreased; and how the number of unemployed in the building trade has increased. Rents have not decreased. Every bad thing that could possibly have happened has happened during the time the right hon. Member has been Minister of Health.
During the remarks of the right hon. Member for West Woolwich the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary, with a smile on her face, looked forward to the time when she would rise in her place and demolish the arguments of my right hon. Friend. We could see her straining at the leash, and we naturally expected that she was going to knoch his arguments flat. Then came the speech of the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) and the hon. Lady was a little troubled, especially when he told her that she did not understand the question of housing, and that the right hon. Member for West Woolwich was perfectly right. She began to look a little worried. When the right hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth corroborated the statements, the smile departed from the face of the hon. Lady, and she will have to use her discretion, her tact and her courage, if she is to make a satisfactory answer for the present Government.

Miss LEE: If the hon. Member likes to come up to Lanarkshire, we can show him what progress has been made in dealing with the housing problem. If we can have cheaper rents, we can employ the builders.

Dr. DAVIES: I suppose that, to a certain extent, the rents charged are an economic problem, but if we are going to have a subsidy to deal with rents, I should be immediately out of order, because it would mean legislation. I am afraid that I cannot follow the hon. Member for North Lanark (Miss Lee) in her very reasoned and legitimate suggestion. The Minister is to blame in this respect. During the last 12 months the late Lord Privy Seal has been most anxious under his schemes for assisting unemployment to help any local authority provided it dealt with unemployment and would produce some revenue in return. Why did not the Minister of Health go to the Lord Privy Seal and ask for some portion of the £85,000,000 which the House voted him for housing; for the encouragement of the building of houses which are so bady needed? He did nothing of the sort. Like all Ministers of Health, he had the high desire of handing his name down to posterity by a Bill; he was busy preparing a Slum Clearance Bill, which has been introduced and which is being considered by the Committee upstairs. Let me take this opportunity of saying that the opposition to this Bill is not for the purpose of opposing it—[Interruption]—but for the purpose of improving an extremely bad Bill. Although we have had very little luck so far certain changes have been made, and we hope that further changes will be made when the Bill is considered on Report stage. The right hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth, who is one of the greatest authorities on housing in the country, has stated that this Slum Clearance Bill is no good at all, and will not help the problem in any way.
And this is all that the Minister of Health can do for housing after 12 months in office! The whole result—I was going to say is a scandal, but perhaps that is rather too strong a word—is extremely unfortunate, and should be a lesson to right hon. and hon. Members opposite that while it may be very amusing in opposition to criticise, the time comes when your chickens come home to roost. Hon. Members are now in the unhappy situation of finding that their chickens are coming home to roost, and they are not at all pleased with the birds. It is a long time since I saw such a deep gloom on the faces of hon. Members
opposite. Apparently they are dissatisfied with the results of the last 12 months and ashamed of the work which the Minister of Health has done for housing. They will have to go back to their constituents and tell them that after 12 months in office the housing situation is worse than it was before. The only two good points in connection with this problem are the results of private enterprise, of which hon. Members opposite are so fond, and the work of utility societies. Hon. Members opposite will also have to take this further point into consideration. In a publication which I was reading the other day a reference was made to a meeting of the County Councils' Association, where this resoultion was passed last May:
That the Chancellor of the Exchequer be informed of the councils agreement with the view that …. in default of a legislative moratorium the whole cost of any new legislation should be borne by the Exchequer.

Mr. KELLY: Do you agree with it?

Dr. DAVIES: I am reading the resolution.

Mr. KELLY: In view of the fact that the hon. Member is pressing this matter upon the attention of hon. Members on this side, will he say whether he agrees with it or not?

Viscountess ASTOR: Do you agree with it?

Mr. KELLY: Yes, I do.

Dr. DAVIES: I am reading the resolution passed by the County Councils' Association, in which they say that the whole cost should be borne by the Exchequer.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not rule that the hon. Member for Royton (Dr. Davies) is strictly outside the question of administration, but the resolution, as far as I understand it, refers to future legislation, and that is entirely outside the scope of this Vote.

Dr. DAVIES: I was simply using it as showing the trend of modern opinion in local authorities and to emphasise the point that the Government will find it more and more difficult to build houses in the future than in the past. Whether it means legislation or not I do not know; I am pointing out the trend of
public opinion. One of the great difficulties at the present time of local authorities is that they have to pay a certain definite proportion of the cost, and in the depressed state of trade and industry, with their rateable value going down and with so many mills and factories out of work, it means that many local authorities are not prepared to build under housing schemes or slum clearance schemes because they cannot undertake this fresh financial responsibility. Although the record of the present Government is very bad I suggest that the outlook for the forthcoming months is worse still. The longer the present Government is in office the worse for the country. Fewer houses will be built, and the faces of hon. Members opposite will become longer and longer until eventually they will have to throw up the sponge. Their criticisms when in office were very brave, but their actions as a Government are very weak. They will have to say, "We find the trouble too great, it is beyond our capacity." What the country needs is a reversal to that Government which built the largest number of houses in one year in the history of the world. [Interruption.] In no year has the number of houses built by the last Conservative Government been exceeded, and the sooner a Conservative administration is returned the better for this House, for housing and for the country.

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: The speech of the hon. Member for Royton (Dr. Davies) is a conspicuous instance of the sort of thing of which the country is getting tired. We want to get down to the practical difficulties of this problem. The hon. Member was very unfair in one respect. He said that the present. Government were entirely responsible for the fact that housing has not gone ahead of the requirements of the population. The facts are that the Government are not in a position to build houses themselves they have to rely upon the municipalities. A scheme was adopted by the late Government. Originally it was a 15 years' scheme, but what encouragement was given by the late Government to that scheme when it proposed to reduce the subsidy?

Lord EUSTACE PERCY: No.

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: It was suggested that the subsidy should be reduced below £7 10s., and it has been restored by the present Government to £7 10s.

Lord E. PERCY: The periodical review of the amount of the subsidy was part of the original 15 years' scheme.

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: I agree, but the review was to be dependent upon the progress made in the provision of houses under that scheme. The last Government took no stock of the fact that the progress made under the scheme was far short of the intention of the Act when originally passed, but by mere force of their position and power reduced the subsidy, in spite of the fact that the building under the scheme had not kept pace with the rate originally put into the scheme. The municipalities are the ones who have to carry out that scheme. There is no need for further legislation. That scheme stands to the credit of the late Mr. Wheatley as the one practical scheme for dealing with the problem of the housing of the working classes. Why has it been stopped? It has not been stopped entirely, of course, but it was discouraged originally by the late Government.
Let us remember that every attempt is made by speakers on the other side of the Committee to discredit the granting of loans to public bodies. We are told again and again that the national credit is being attacked by the Government. No municipality, with the market in that state, is likely to carry on a scheme involving a very large sum of money. For this reason municipalities have gone very slowly indeed with schemes under which they might have provided the houses required. I know, because I have been a member for 20 years of a body which has been very keen on meeting the requirements of that part of its population which cannot afford to buy houses. In Croydon you can find any number of houses at quite reasonable prices for purchase, but you cannot find houses for letting from one end of the borough to the other. The problem is the provision of houses that can be let. The body to which I have referred has endeavoured to provide schemes. It has built something like 3,000 houses for letting, the rents to include rates. There are Addison rents, rents when the subsidy was higher than it is
now, and the rents of houses built when the cost of building was less than it is now.
Remember that there is nothing to be expected from a municipality except caution, and that throughout the country every attempt has been made to discourage public bodies from entering into large commitments during the past year. If no scheme has been added to the schemes that already exist, it is largely due to the fact that the pledging of public credit has been discredited to such a point that the Corporation, anxious as it is to do what is required, hesitates to take the first step. But you cannot blame the Government for that. The Government has encouraged every municipality by increasing the subsidy or by keeping it from the threatened fall—the subsidy of £7 10s. per house is there. The public authorities have not hesitated because of want of encouragement from the Government.
A fact which, more than any other, has caused hesitation among local authorities, is the tragic fact that rents, even under the present subsidy arrangements, cannot be fixed at a figure which the majority of would-be tenants can afford to pay. What happens? In a corporation such as that of which I am a member there are workmen employed who get what is called the standard rate of pay of their class. The rate is £2 17s. 10½d. for men working on the road. Houses cannot be produced to be let at rents, including rates, of less than 13s. 6d. or 14s. a week. To ask the man with a family to pay such a rent when he is earning only £2 17s. 10½d. a week is, of course, mocking him. A man cannot fulfil his duty as a parent and pay a rent of that kind. The problem presents itself to most of the corporations of the country in this way—how to produce houses for letting at rents that the bulk of the working classes can afford to pay. Can it be done?
My desire is not merely to put before this Committee facts which are known to everyone, but to make a suggestion which tackles what is the essential difficulty of the position. The difficulty is not even in the price of the house of to-day. It is possible to get a house for a working-class family for about £430. That is, of course, considerably more than the cost in pre War days. Judging by what
has been done up, and down the country with housing schemes, it is possible to get at £430 a decent house in decent surroundings, with not more than 12 houses to the acre; in short, a development that no municipality need be ashamed, of and an estate where no working man need be ashamed to live. It may be said that that price is double the pre-War price. Business men have said as much to me, and that the wages of working men are considerably more than they were. Take the case of the workman with the £2 17s. 10½d. per week. His wages in pre-War days were in the neighbourhood of £1 8s. a week. The business man says, "If you have doubled the price of the house and doubled the wages of the workmen, the two things ought to put you in the same position as you were in before the War." But that statement overlooks what I consider to be the most patent difficulty and the root cause of mischief in relation to housing—the cost of money, not the cost of housing. The workman earns double the wages and the house costs twice as much, but the rate of interest, the capital charges, are also twice as much, and when you put twice as high capital charges on top of twice the capital cost, you have a cost of building which is four times what it was in pre-War days.
That is the snag. Is there a solution? Where can we find money the interest on which has not risen? What about the Post Office Savings Bank? It is supposed to be the bank of the working classes. and they still continue—I often wonder why—to use it. They get 2½ per cent. for their money. As far as I can see in the public accounts the balance left in the Post Office Savings Bank is passed into the hands of the Public Works Loans Commissioners. There, presumably, they mix it with other amounts of money which they receive, and they loan it, not at the rate at which it was acquired, but at something like 5½ per cent. to local bodies for public purposes generally. I do not think I exaggerate if I say that the floating balance in the Post Office Savings Banks is about £100,000,000 a year. This is working-class money receiving a low rate of interest. Why not take it and invest it in working-class houses? That would go far to solve the problem of the rents of working-class houses. I cannot see why money lent by
the working classes should not be expressly earmarked for housing the working classes. That suggestion is the contribution I make to the debate. If people are suffering to-day the physical and moral consequences of overcrowding, it is due to the fact, not that houses cannot be built or materials bought at a reasonable price, but that for money more interest is being asked than can possibly be paid in rents by the working classes.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: I have listened with great interest to the hon. Member who has just spoken, but I do not propose to follow him in his financial argument. I should prefer him to debate his suggestion with the Chancellor of the Exchequer privately, and as the hon. Member belongs to the Labour party his suggestion ought to carry some weight with the Chancellor. I am afraid, however, that the right hon. Gentleman will have some criticism of the suggestion to offer. I agree with the hon. Member that it is just as well in these debates to get down to the real position that we have to face. For myself I say that if the present Government brings in a Bill that is going to help to solve the housing problem, I shall support it. Some remarks have been made about the Housing Bill that is now before a Standing Committee. It has been suggested that that Bill is being obstructed. I refute the charge absolutely. The Bill is a very important Bill of many Clauses, and the few days that we have spent in discussing it have not by any means been wasted. On the contrary there has been a genuine attempt on the part of Members of my own party and of the Liberal party to secure Amendments that would strengthen and improve the Bill. The majority of the Amendments have been brought forward at the request of associations representing local authorities, and, as one who spent a good many years on a local authority and who served on housing committees and on committees dealing with slum clearances, I say that they are people who have a right to be consulted on this matter and whose views ought to be put before the Committee and before the House. They will have to administer the Measure; this is the stage at which Amendments must be brought forward, and therefore to say that these Amendments are obstruction is sheer nonsense.
The fact of the matter is that the Bill is of such importance that it ought to have been——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is quite entitled to refute a charge of obstruction, but he cannot go into the merits or demerits of the Bill.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: I was not going to speak of the merits or demerits of the Bill, but merely to say that it would have been wiser of the Government to have introduced it earlier in the Session so as to have given a fair amount of time to the Committee proceedings. They have no right to seek to rush a Bill of such magnitude through Committee. Hon. Members opposite have already found out that in some cases this kind of thing does not work out very well for themselves and the way in which the Bill is drafted——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member cannot discuss legislation.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: We may leave the matter there. In order to understand this question thoroughly it is necessary to go into the history of legislation on the housing problem. Before I became a Member of this House I heard the right hon. Gentleman who is at present Minister of Agriculture address a public meeting——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is only entitled to discuss those matters for which the Ministry is responsible in its work and its administration. He is entitled to discuss whether or not the powers already possessed by the Ministry are being used wisely or unwisely but he cannot go into the merits of past legislation, nor can he anticipate future legislation. This Vote is purely administrative.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: Surely I am entitled to refer to the efforts of former Ministers to deal with this problem and to show why they failed, and also to deal with what the present Ministry are trying to do and to show why I consider that they will fail? I was only going to say that the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister of Agriculture on the occasion to which I refer mentioned the difficulties which he had encountered in dealing with this question and expressed his determination not to approve of any schemes which would create fresh slum
property in this country. He was referring to the building of very cheap houses with inferior materials which would quickly become slum property. I agreed with the right hon. Gentleman but as time went on he found himself up against the problem of cost and the huge cost of housing under his scheme was the one thing that condemned it. The right hon. Gentleman soon realised that he had set himself a greater task than he could accomplish, and he then blamed the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon. Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). But in a speech in this House on 21st October, 1920, he also said:
I have had no help from organised labour in tine matter from start to finish …. The organised Labour party in this House. … has never given me any help."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st October, 1920; cols. 1200–1201, Vol. 133.]
Now the right hon. Gentleman is a member of that party and is a Cabinet Minister, and I wonder what he has to say on the present position. Reference has been made to the late Mr. Wheatley and to the difficulties which he encountered in connection with the provision of houses for the people who need them. I remember a speech of the late Mr. Wheatley when he was Minister of Health, in which he said that in his negotiations he had not had great difficulty with those responsible for the supply of building materials, but that his greatest difficulty had been with organised labour. I am glad that that difficulty has been overcome. It has been overcome largely by negotiation and because those responsible for the conduct of the building trade unions realised that they would have to pull their weight with the rest of us if we were to provide the houses required. When hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite seek to lay the blame for the difficulties which were experienced in the early days, on a certain section of the community, I want them to bear in mind the words which I have quoted from two Labour Cabinet Ministers as to where the blame lay in those days. What has happened during the last few years? In the ten years, from 1919 to 1928, according to official figures, 1,200,000 houses have been built in England and Wales and of these 860,000 were built during the four and a half years of the late Government's term of office and under the administration of
the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edgbaston (Mr. Chamberlain) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood). That is their record and, whatever arguments are put forward, we cannot get away from the fact that while they were in office there was a great speeding up in the building of houses.

Mr. MILLS: They were administering the Wheatley Act.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: I have not time to go into the figures of the Chamberlain Act and the Wheatley Act, but. I think hon. Members opposite will find that the greater part of the building was done under the Chamberlain Act. [HON. MEMBERS "No!"] I agree that the problem which we have to face is that of providing houses at rents which the working-class can afford to pay, and by "working-class" I mean the lower-paid workers such as casual labourers and workers of that kind. I have come up against this problem in my duties as a local legislator. In the early days when housing committees were set up under the Ministry of Health and houses were being provided under the Addison scheme and the Wheatley scheme, the question first arose as to the people who were to be allowed to live in these housed.
The committees—which were not confined to numbers of any one political party—in the first burst of generosity, said they would let the houses to the men and women with the largest families and in the greatest need of accommodation. I myself said "Hear, hear" to that proposition but what happened afterwards? We found that many of these tenants were men such as casual labourers, perhaps without any very regular employment, earning very small wages and having big families to support. They could not keep up with the rents which the committees had to charge under the Addison Act and the Wheatley Act and indeed all the legislation passed by Parliament. The committees were not in a position to reduce the rents because of the conditions and terms imposed. Then they found that particular housing schemes were showing heavy arrears. They appointed new collectors in the hope of improving the situation but it was of no avail. Thus it came about that when
applicants for houses came before one of these committees the first question asked was "What is your occupation?" and if the man was a policeman or a railwayman or in some regular occupation of that kind he got the house and the other poor fellow had to wait. It is "the other poor fellow" about whom I am concerned. I want to see that he shall get a house.
What is happening under the slum clearance schemes which have been approved by Parliament? I take it that I am at liberty to refer to administrative action under slum clearance Acts already on the Statute Book. I am not referring to the Measure which is at present under consideration in Committee. I have here a letter which indicates the existence of a rather serious state of affairs in this connection in the City of Hull. There they have a slum clearance scheme and it is suggested that instead of the people removed from the slum district being placed in the new houses they should be placed in older houses, and that the people who vacate those older houses should go into the new houses. It is suggested to the people in the older houses, which are not being condemned as slum houses, that they should make arrangements with their landlords so that those houses can be taken over by the Corporation. The Corporation then suggest that they will remove the people cleared from the slum area into those houses and that the people who vacate those houses should go into the new houses.
I do not regard that as a right or proper way of dealing with the question. It would be far better to provide the dispossessed people with houses on the sites which are being cleared, because, almost invariably, those sites are near where the people work and earn their living, and they object to having to go long distances to and from work. When these people are removed from slum houses it is far better that they should be given a fair chance with a reasonably-priced new house. In the case to which I refer it is suggested that the rent of the new houses should be equal to the rent of the house vacated plus 5 per cent. That is the suggestion of the Hull Housing Committee but instead of saying to the people who are now in the slum houses, "We will let you have a new house at the rent which you are now
paying plus 5 per cent." they propose to put those people into other houses which are perhaps half worn-out now, with the idea of getting the other tenants into the new houses. That is simply because, owing to their experience in the past, the various authorities are anxious to get the best type of tenant into their own houses and they are saying to private enterprise, "You can have the rest."

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not know if the hon. Member can show that this mater is a part of the responsibility of the Ministry of Health in its administrative capacity?

Mr. WOMERSLEY: I think the Parliamentary Secretary will bear me out when I say that the Department has power over the local authorities in this matter where assistance has been rendered by the Department. I think the Ministry has to sanction all schemes of slum clearance, and is, to that extent, responsible for the methods employed in rehousing the people. I fear that the case which I have just quoted indicates what is going to be the practice throughout the country—namely, to move the people from the slum property into other old property, and to get the people from that property, who can afford to pay bigger rents, into the new houses. I agree that the Government have shown a lack of initiative on the question of housing. Since the War, each Minister of Health has attached his name to an Act of Parliament. We have had the Addison Act, the Wheatley Act, and the Chamberlain Act, and some of us who are keenly interested in this problem hoped that we should have the Greenwood Act. I am not going to say that the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister will not attach his name to the Measure which is known as the Housing (No. 2) Bill, but which is really a Slum Clearance Bill. I would have preferred a far bolder Measure——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now referring to legislation.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: I am suggesting a lack of initiative on the part of the Minister.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is suggesting and anticipating future legislation.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: I put it in this way—that even as regards the Housing
Acts now on the Statute Book, the Minister could have done more. There are local authorities to-day who have built houses under the schemes of the Government—houses to let at the rents mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Sir T. Walters). He mentioned a rent of 6s. a week for houses which he and his friends had been responsible for building. There are local authorities who have built houses to let at even less than 6s. a week. I have not seen the houses but I am told that they are of a good type. Local authorities are faced with the position that in many cases the cost of road and sewerage works connected with housing schemes is very high indeed—probably more than twice as high as in pre-War times. That is a great problem, but still we have local authorities which have carried out housing schemes, and placed a good class of house—not a large type, but a good, serviceable house—at the disposal of the people of their district, at a very low rent. It would be wise if the Minister circulated among the other local authorities particulars of these schemes, which are well known at the Ministry of Health. I have myself full particulars of one such scheme which has proved eminently successful and has provided the cheap house which we so much desire. I suggest that it would be a sensible thing to circulate particulars of these schemes, which could be copied to advantage by other local authorities. That is a practical suggestion which might be noted.
6.0 p.m.
In conclusion, let me say that we want a little more drive behind the administrative machine. It is all very well to blame local authorities and say that they have not done their duty. The local authorities throughout the country, in the main, are very keen to help in this question of rehousing the people. It is to their advantage to do so, because they get an improved rateable value with new houses as compared with slum property, but they have many difficulties to face. In the depressed areas there is the tremendous difficulty of the very high rates, which in themselves are driving trade away and making it very difficult indeed for those councils to carry on. Although I know I may be ruled out of order, I will risk suggesting that a more
generous contribution from the Ministry would encourage local authorities to carry on with some of this work. It is no use asking them to do something which they cannot do, and the districts that can afford it are those where they do not want small houses, but bigger houses.

The CHAIRMAN: I cannot allow the hon. Member to pursue that line of argument.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: The only way to find out the rules of this House is to break them, and I have had a very good lesson from the Chair this afternoon, but the Chair has treated me very courteously, and I am much obliged to you, Mr. Young, and to your Deputy for your courtesy. What we want is more drive from the Minister, and, without speaking from a political point of view, I am keenly disappointed with the administration of the Ministry of Health during the last 12 months. I do not think it has satisfied hon. Members opposite, and I am certain that it has not satisfied the people of this country in any measure whatever.

Mr. PALMER: I listened with interest to the speech of the right hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), in which he purported to show that our activity as a Government in respect to building did not stand in such a good light as did the figures for the previous Government. I will leave it to the Minister in charge of the debate to answer that statement, but if it be true that the figures are not so good, it is only another way of saying that the Opposition have succeeded in all their various ways and methods of obstructing the progress that the Government have been attempting to make in regard to housing. It must be remembered that when we came into office a time limit had been placed upon the existing subsidy, and that being known to local authorities and the building trade, there was a spurt in housing towards the latter end of the lifetime of the previous Government, so that to compare those figures with the normal figures for the year is not at all fair.
One of the first things the Minister of Health had to do in respect to housing was to restore the confidence and understanding of those who were charged with the housing of the people, and as
my hon. Friend the Member for Rom-ford (Mr. Muggeridge) said, money was an important factor, because unless there was a sufficient subsidy, it was impossible to build houses at a rent which the people could hope to pay. If it were true that we had not produced so many houses in this first year of office as corn-pared with the eleventh hour repentance of the late Government, there are explanations forthcoming, but we have done what is very important in this connection. We have restored the subsidy, and we have continued the rent restriction, which was another question that was overshadowing progress in regard to housing. The design of the late Government was to let loose—I use the words advisedly—all the sharks in the housing world, to remove that restriction, and to allow the rents to go up and make a corner, so to speak, in houses. That was dealt with. I am pleased to say that, as compared with what was spent on housing in 1929, we are proposing to spend under this Vote £705,000 more. It seems idle for any hon. or right hon. Member opposite to say that we are not taking essential steps to deal with the housing problem. I happen to be on Standing Committee a and I know that but for the obstruction there——

The CHAIRMAN: We cannot deal with Standing Committees upstairs.

Mr. PALMER: I accept your Ruling, so far as the reference to the Committee is concerned, and I come back to the activity of the Ministry of Health in regard to the Housing (No. 2) Bill, which makes definite and extensive provisions for housing. Those provisions—

The CHAIRMAN: Is the hon. Member not again talking about the Bill upstairs?

Mr. PALMER: No. I am talking about the activity of the Ministry of Health during this year, which has been criticised by the Opposition, and I say that the Ministry have been acting in the best possible way in regard to health. They have first restored a measure of confidence to the local authorities charged with housing, by continuing rent restriction, by restoring the subsidy, and by providing under this Vote a sum of £705,000 more than was provided last year. Further, knowing the difficulties of the housing problem in this country so
intimately as they do, they have made provision for extensive clearance of slums and for rehousing the people under the provisions of this Vote. I take it that the slum clearance Bill is comprehended within the money proposed to be spent under this Vote, and because the work of the Ministry has been criticised to-day, I am bound to say that greater advance would have been made with that Measure——

The CHAIRMAN: I have already drawn the hon. Member's attention to the fact that he is not to refer to any Bill now in process of being passed by this House.

Mr. PALMER: I acept your Ruling, and come back to administration. The Minister has had to survey the whole field with regard to health, whether it was houses which had fallen into disrepair, or houses for rent, or houses for sale, and in this connection our record for houses to let has been fairly good. We have produced 132,144 State-aided houses up to September last, and the private enterprise houses are now some 71,083. It is a point of criticism by the Opposition that we have bent our energies rather more to houses to let than to houses for sale, and that is why the Minister has had to survey the whole field and see what could be done for those who most needed adequate housing accommodation. The restoration of the subsidy and the provision under this Vote will effect a very good record for this Government by the close of this Session.

Miss RATHBONE: Speaker after speaker in this debate has laid stress on the importance of lower rents, and yet you, Mr. Young, have laid it down that we are to discuss nothing except the administration of the Ministry of Health under the present law. As has been shown in speech after speech, the powers of the Ministry of Health under the present law in reducing rents are relatively small. During all the preceding years when the right hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), who introduced this discussion, was himself in power at the Ministry of Health, he had precisely the same causes operating, leading to precisely the same failure to meet the housing problem, as we are seeing to-day with the Labour Government in power. That is, under my analysis of the situa
tion, that we had first of all an economic situation which produced very high costs of building and wages that were tending progressively to fall, and we had, to begin with, a large gap between the capacity to pay of the great majority of would-be tenants and the cost of production of houses.
What has been wrong for the past 10 years is that the well-meaning and in many respects highly energetic and praiseworthy efforts of one Ministry after another—I do not care which party they represented—with all the local authorities assisting them, have been bent too much on the problem of how to produce houses and much too little on the distribution of houses. The problem of the production of houses, as the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) has shown, is enormously important; he has very justly criticised the action of the Ministry, who, in spite of the fact that building costs are now lower than at any time since the War, have done nothing to counteract the tremendous falling off in spite of these lower building costs. The strongest count in the indictment that has been made against the Ministry is that, faced with lower building costs and an enormous fall in the production of houses, they have not taken any strong action to counteract that process.
We are limited to discussing what the Ministry could have done under the present law. There is one thing they could have done that they have not done, and one thing about which the right hon. Member for West Woolwich has no right to criticise them, for he made the same mistake. They have passed their Housing Acts, spent a certain amount of public money, and have laid down elaborate Regulations as to how that money should be used in the production of houses, and, having done that, they have thrown the reins on the necks of the local authorities and allowed them to use these houses just as they pleased, and let them how they pleased to any sort of tenants they pleased. That is the root cause of the failure of the housing policy during the past 10 years. We have had the houses—I do not blame the Minister for that—but they have been highly rented houses, because they could not produce anything but highly rented houses. They have done nothing, however, to see that the scheme was so manipulated that the
houses were used for the right sort of tenants. A number of hon. Members have laid stress upon the fact that what we wanted were houses which the lower wage earners could rent; and others have pointed out that if you put tenants with very small wages in the highly rented houses, it merely means that heavier and heavier arrears are piled up, the tenants fall into serious difficulties, and they have to be turned out.
The Ministry of Health should take a much firmer hold of the whole question of the allocation of houses to tenants and the manipulation of rents in such a way that the houses will meet the greatest need. I believe that that can be done. If one studies the statistics of the ability of tenants to pay, one finds that it is by no means invariably the case that the tenants in the slums are unable to pay reasonable rents. I have a curious analysis that has been taken of a certain very poor housing district in Ancoats; a door-to-door survey was made of about 200 houses in two or three streets, and it was found that very nearly 50 per cent. of the tenants could have afforded to pay over 19s. a week in rent. They could have afforded to pay an economic rent because their families were composed of two or three wage-earners. Similar instances will be found in any block of poor tenements. In the discussion that we have been having on the Housing Bill—I give this only as an illustration—some of us have pointed out to the Ministry the necessity of ensuring that the needs of those tenants who have dependent children should be met by means of rebates in rents according to the number of children——

The CHAIRMAN rose——

Miss RATHBONE: I am not going to refer to the present Housing Bill. My point is simply that what we have been arguing should be done in the future, can be done now under the present law. It has been in the power of the Ministry all these years to insist that the local authorities shall draw up such regulations as to make it possible to get in the houses the persons who need the houses, and to adjust the rent according to the capacity of those tenants to pay, by means of rebates according to the number of dependent children. That is one way in which they
could ensure that the houses they put up, rented according to the standard rents that were actually fixed——

The CHAIRMAN: There is some doubt about this power, and I am afraid I must ask the hon. Member to give the authority by which the Minister can do it.

Miss RATHBONE: It is being done already in one or two schemes that have the sanction of the Ministry of Health. The best known scheme is that of Banbury. It has been done under a scheme, closely analogous to the scheme to which I am now allowed to allude in further detail, by which the local authority of Banbury have been required to show that the particular houses put up in connection with a clearance scheme produced an aggregate rental pool, and as long as that pool was forthcoming, they were allowed to charge a standard rent and grant rebates in diminution of that standard rent. That has been done under the present law, and my reason for alluding to the fact is that it is extremely important that local authorities all over the country should realise that they need not fix their eyes only on legislation which is not yet on the Statute Book, and which will only be able to be used to a limited extent, because it will have to be used in connection with slum clearance; but in regard to Wheatley, Addison and Chamberlain houses, it is still possible to make a much more scientific use of the existing houses if the local authorities will only take care that persons are not permitted to remain in them when they have no more need than you or I for a subsidy out of the rates and taxes. As houses become vacant, it should be possible to get into them tenants who really need them, and if they need special assistance, it should be given to them, not by a lowering of the standard rent, but by the system of rent rebates for children.
The moral I am anxious to drive home is that the Ministry of Health are riding for a fall if they think that they can solve the slum clearance problem, or the housing problem at all, or this problem of meeting the needs of the lower paid wage earners, simply by means of a subsidy flung at the heads of the local authority, the local authority being given freedom to use that subsidy as they please. It is perfectly clear that under the existing
law, or under any law which we are likely to get in the next two years, the cloth is going to be cut very tightly, even if the Labour Ministry are in power, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer threw out a pledge in his Budget speech that, unless something unforeseen happened, he was not going to ask for heavier expenditure; so we have to make the most scientific use of any resources that are available for housing. The Ministry will not solve either the slum clearance problem or the problem of more houses under the existing Acts unless they cease to have this blind confidence in the economic sapience of the local authorities. The failure of the past has not been a failure mainly to put up houses. The whole house production effort has been a floe effort, though it is tailing off now, largely because of a general consciousness among the local authorities that there is no particular need; the failure has been in not scientifically distributing the houses that have been put up. It was the failure of the past as well as of the present Ministry.
Acts have been passed during the last 10 years, and will be passed in the next two months, that practically leave the whole of the real responsibility of the scientific distribution to local authorities, and then, when the local authorities fail to meet the need, you throw the blame on them and say, "What can we do with these Conservative boroughs?" But does not the hon. Lady, the Parliamentary Secretary, know what kind of boroughs with which she has to deal? Does she expect to change the political complexion of the boroughs, and if the boroughs are mainly representative of a rather slow-thinking and property-respecting type, why does she put such unbounded confidence in them? When we criticise any change, we are told that the Association of Municipal Corporations and the local authorities desire it. We are going to give the money to the local authorities and let them make their own plans, and then all the blame will be thrown on them when they do what everyone who has had experience in housing in the past finds—the great majority of them will act as ordinary property owners would act. They think that the best policy is to put up houses and then put the best tenants in them. They are proud of their schemes, and when
foreigners or people from other towns visit their neighbourhoods, they show them their beautiful housing schemes, but nine-tenths of them will never ask whether they have not merely been a matter of pouring out million after million of pounds, and putting up houses, and then, simply from a want of scientific thinking and planning and the want of a strong hand at the helm at the Ministry of Health, allowing all these houses to go to persons who are not in need of them. I blame far more the party which was in power during the last seven years than the present party; they professed to be a party of economy, and yet they were responsible for this tremendous waste of public money. I greatly fear that history will repeat itself:
"Plus ca change plus c'est la même chose."
As long as you have Ministries governed by the same officials with the same narrow range of ideas, we shall not have any real alternative housing policy such as was promised in the days of the War, when we were assured of homes fit for heroes.

Viscountess ASTOR: I am afraid I represent that slow-thinking property-respecting type referred to by the hon. Lady for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone), and I rejoice, because they have shown much more vision than hon. Members opposite, in matters of housing. I really am amazed at the cowardice of the back-benchers in not getting up to-day to taunt the Government. In my opinion, progress can only be secured by having the Opposition strong. Most of the great social reform Measures were passed by Tory Governments pushed by the Opposition. Today we have a most reactionary Government, but there is nobody pushing them, not even their own back benchers, and so I despair of getting a move on in regard to housing. Slum clearance is a question of housing, but it is a matter of education, too. The hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary came into power with tremendous promises to clear up everything in three weeks. That was the boast, and we ought never to let them forget it. According to her, it was all so simple and so beautifully easy—when it was only a question of talking about it;
but now it is so difficult! I want to ask why the Government have not had some big scheme of town-planning?

The CHAIRMAN: Town-planning would require legislation.

Viscountess ASTOR: There are already Measures on the Statute Book dealing with town-planning.

The CHAIRMAN: But any better scheme of town-planning would require legislation.

Sir K. WOOD: On that point of Order. I would like to submit that there are a number of Measures dealing with town-planning already on the Statute Book, and consequently that it is perfectly fair criticism to ask why the Government have not encouraged local authorities to take advantage of them and to administer them.

The CHAIRMAN: The Noble Lady is not so adept at putting her point as the right hon. Gentleman.

Viscountess ASTOR: That is exactly the point I was putting.

The CHAIRMAN: If the Noble Lady will kindly make it plain that she is dealing with past legislation and not asking for further legislation, she will be in order.

Viscountess ASTOR: I did hope that when the present Government came in they would push on with putting into force the legislation already passed by former reactionary Governments, as they now call them, but not one thing has been done. In Plymouth, building has been stopped and slum clearance has been stopped. In the last year of the Tory Government there were 17 slum clearance schemes submitted to the Ministry, but in the last year not a single one was brought forward. Hon. Members opposite claim to represent the down-and-outs and the down-trodden people, and yet not one of them has risen except to make the most mild criticism of the Government. The hon. Lady for North Lanark (Miss Lee) said they intended to call the Tory bluff. The tragedy is that the Socialist bluff has been called.

Miss LEE: Does the hon. Member know of any way of getting houses
which can be rented cheaply without increased taxation; and would her friends beside her, who are fighting so hard against an increase of 6d. on the Income Tax, be willing to give us the necessary money?

Viscountess ASTOR: Bring in your schemes and let us examine them. I am dealing with your promises, not ours. When we brought in our Bills we had the Opposition of that day saying what they were going to do. The hon. Lady opposite said that when their Government came in no child should want for anything. Instead of progress, we have actually got reaction. Not a single slum clearance scheme has been put forward in the last year—and there is absolute quiet from hon. Members opposite!
Open-air nursery schools come into the question of slum clearance. We know that 2,000,000 children are living in—the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary need not look bored. I want her to listen. I had to listen to her for months—to her torrents of eloquence and her torrents of hate. What a case the Government could have made if they had come to the House showing that more than 2,000,000 children are living in insanitary homes. Between 40 and 50 per cent. of the children going to elementary schools are physically defective; but among those children who attended the open-air nursery schools between the ages of two and five, only 7 per cent. are found physically defective when they get into the elementary schools. Why has no plea been put forward for that side of the work? Why is there no great scheme for extending those schools?

The CHAIRMAN: Do nursery schools come under this Vote?

Viscountess ASTOR: They ought to, Mr. Young.

The CHAIRMAN: But I am dealing with the question of whether they actually do.

Lord E. PERCY: Perhaps I may say that there are two types—there are nursery schools which are subsidised by the Board of Education and various types of day nurseries which are subsidised by the Ministry of Health. I submit that, using "nursery schools" as a generic
term, it is quite justifiable criticism to complain of the absence of any provision for nursery schools.

The CHAIRMAN: I understand the Ministry of Health are responsible for day nurseries, but not for nursery schools.

Viscountess ASTOR: I am thinking about nursery schools and I do not want to mix them up.

The CHAIRMAN: That being so, it is a question for the Ministry of Education Vote, and does not arise on this Vote.

Viscountess ASTOR: I wish to ask why no provision is being made in the new Housing Bill for retaining sites for nursery schools. I deeply regret that I was not put on the Committee dealing with that Bill. There has been a real lack of vision in neglecting to secure spaces for open-air nursery schools. The hon. Lady herself knows how difficult it is, when once building is in progress, to get sites reserved for open-air nursery schools. I do hope it is not too late to insert the necessary Clause in the Bill which is in Committee.

The CHAIRMAN: At least two, if not three, hon. Members have been ruled out of order for referring to future legislation, and now the Noble Lady asks the Minister to introduce a Clause——

Viscountess ASTOR: It is not future legislation. It is the present Bill.

The CHAIRMAN: But this has nothing to do with the present Bill.

Viscountess ASTOR: I wonder whether I am in order in asking the Parliamentary Secretary what she has done towards the prevention of maternal mortality. Does that come in? The pledge was given that the prevention of maternal mortality would be the immediate concern of the Labour Government, and we would like to hear whether anything has been done since they came into office. Every year 3,000 women die in childbirth. The figures are stationary. The Government ought to have tried to effect a reduction. Some of us have a suspicion that the money which might have gone towards this reform has been spent in other ways. We think it has probably gone in increased unemployment benefit to juveniles. If that be the case, there
is lack of vision, because every mother knows that the greatest disaster that can happen to a family is that the mother should die. We have had two Committees reporting on this question and it is a pressing question, but I have never heard whether the present Government have done a single thing in the matter.
I am rather sorry for everybody who has to deal with the housing question, because it is so difficult and so complicated. It has been shown to-day that appalling profiteering is going on in the matter of sub-letting. [Interruption.] The Government cannot legislate against profiteering. [Interruption.] They cannot. The profiteers are on your side of the House as well as on my side of the House. You have said you could legislate, but you know you cannot, because you are up against something that no Government can conquer by legislation. In my own constituency we have had corporation houses built and two of the people who took them were the very Labour men who had been talking violently against single people having corporation houses. They both took advantage when they could. I do not say that with any intention of describing all hon. Members of the Labour party as being like that, but that sort of thing does go on and it is very difficult to deal with it. I hope the hon. Lady will not say that the Government have been held up by the Opposition. Why, hon. Members opposite do not know the meaning of opposition. If they had been in the last Government they would have seen what opposition was! They are babies! When I hear them crying about the opposition they have encountered I say to them, "Don't squeal, get on with the work." The hon. lady said: "Look at the Consumers Bill."

The CHAIRMAN: I do not know whether the hon. Lady made that statement or not, but she had no right to make any reference to the Consumers Bill.

Miss LAWRENCE: I did not refer to the Consumers Bill.

Viscountess ASTOR: I was referring to the hon. Lady for North Lanark (Miss Lee).

The CHAIRMAN: She had no right to refer to it.

Viscountess ASTOR: I am sorry I cannot go into that question, because it is an interesting point, but I do hope the hon. Lady will not try to fool the country. She cannot fool the House. Every Member in this House knows that the Opposition are not to blame for the slow progress. The simple fact is that hon. Members opposite talk very big when they are out of office, but when they get into office they act very small.

Mr. PYBUS: As I listened to the Noble Lady contending with the hon. Lady opposite over the credit for the work which has been done in the matter of housing, and the great progress which has been made, I felt if I went down to my division and said there had been considerable discussion, lasting many hours, as to who was to have the credit for the enormous progress made in housing, that my constituents would say there was very little for them to fight about. I am bound to say one does feel that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Treasury bench as a whole show a certain amount of complacency regarding the housing problem, as though it were made by the Almighty and entirely incurable. As far as I can gather, it is a form of original sin! These backward boroughs are incurable! The facts are that there are hundreds of thousands of building workers out of employment and hundreds of thousands of people who require houses. Then why is it that work cannot be put in hand? Why are the boroughs so reluctant to proceed? Is it through any lack of advocacy on the part of the Ministry, through any lack of explanation of the terms on which housing schemes can be carried out? If we find somebody who wants something very much and somebody else who is offering to provide it, but it is not accepted, then one is driven to the conclusion that there is something wrong with the offer.
Most of the great schemes for the provision of employment in this country are being diverted to work of a civil engineering character. Money is available for them and yet the Government find it extremely difficult, either through the Unemployment Grants Committee or otherwise, to get municipal authorities to go on with schemes. There was a case in which money provided by one of the Unemployment Committees was used to carry out work which was really the work
of the Electricity Commission. A sum of no less than £10,000,000 was granted by the Unemployment Grants Committee towards the Ministry of Transport's scheme for the standardisation of frequency. If it is possible to divert such a large sum of money for one purpose, it should be possible to divert money for another purpose, and, as people are so reluctant to go on with the standard form of unemployment relief schemes, what could be better than to divert money which is being provided for certain centres towards housing schemes? I hope that statement is not out of order, but I wanted to get it in.

The CHAIRMAN: I am afraid it is out of order.

Mr. PYBUS: I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will consider something of that sort. No doubt in the rural districts it is necessary that more enthusiasm and energy should be displayed by the county councils upon the housing question. I wish I could see a much greater enthusiasm on the Treasury Bench in dealing with housing, and in that respect I do not think the Members of the Opposition party have anything to be proud of. I know that nothing has been done in my own district to be proud of, and I hope that the Ministry of Health in the future will show some definite and real enthusiasm in regard to this question of housing.

The CHAIRMAN rose——

Lord E. PERCY: Surely we are going to have some reply from the Parliamentary Secretary?

Miss LAWRENCE: I am waiting to see if any other hon. Member desires to speak.

Lord E. PERCY: I intend to speak on this question, but I prefer to wait until I have heard the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary.

Miss LAWRENCE: I wish to observe the ordinary courtesies of debate, and I think it is extremely unusual for speeches to be made after the Minister has replied. I regret the absence of the Minister of Health, who is unable to be present because
he is having conferred upon him to-day an honorary degree of Leeds University.

Sir K. WOOD: I communicated with the Minister of Health telling him that I was going to raise this question. The right hon. Gentleman telephoned to me on Friday to the effect that he had overlooked an important engagement at Leeds, and I suggested to him that the Parliamentary Secretary should reply to the debate.

Miss LAWRENCE: I think it will be very disappointing to the House that the Minister of Health is unable to be present. We have been told that this is a bad year for housing, but that is not so. By every test that it is possible to apply it can be proved that this year is very much better than last year as far as housing results are concerned. The total number of houses built by local authorities is up, and so is the number built by private enterprise. The total number of houses built between March, 1928, and March, 1929, was 169,532 and no fewer than 201,812 houses have been built this year, i.e., up to March last. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) told us that the building programmes of local authorities and private enterprise had completely broken down, but what has happened is that a large number of houses have been transferred from the assisted class to the unassisted class.
I would like to explain to the Committee why this transfer took place. It will be remembered that not long ago there was a general consensus of opinion amongst hon. Members opposite that the subsidy should be discontinued. There is no controversy about that point and the reason which animated the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edgbaston (Mr. Chamberlain) as well as my right hon. Friend was that, however useful subsidies have been in the past, there was nothing to be gained by continuing them in the future. Hon. Gentlemen opposite contended that private enterprise would work quite as well without the subsidy as with it. That is exactly what has happened. Private enterprise continues to build houses without the subsidy at almost exactly the same rate as it had been doing with the subsidy. I will give the figures. In the half year ended 31st March, 1929, private enterprise had
built 22,459 houses with the subsidy and 32,785 without the subsidy, making a total of 55,244 built by private enterprise. In the half year ended March, 1930, 53,983 houses in all were built by private enterprise of which only 590 houses received the subsidy. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edgbaston withdrew the subsidy from houses built by private enterprise, he announced that in his opinion private enterprise would build small houses as well without the subsidy as with it, and that forecast has proved to be absolutely true. Let me give the number of houses built. The number built for the year ended March, 1927, was 217,629; for 1927–28, 238,914; for 1928–29, 169,532; and for 1929–30, 201,812. The last 12 months is a better record than the preceding 12 months. I think I have now sufficiently exploded the extraordinary mare's nest which was discovered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich.

Miss RATHBONE: Is the Parliamentary Secretary prepared to state that the houses built by private enterprise without the subsidy are contributions in any real sense towards the provision of working class houses?

Miss LAWRENCE: I am not prepared to say that. The houses supplied by private enterprise are generally for persons just above the economic level of the poorer working classes, and consequently the only houses of importance in that connection are those houses which are let at fixed rents under the Wheatley or the Chamberlain Act.

Mr. SIMON: Is it not a fact that 95,000 Wheatley houses were built in 1927, and that we are now building at only half that rate?

7.0 p.m.

Miss LAWRENCE: For the year ending March, 1927, 60,000 houses were provided by local authorities and for the year ending March, 1928, 91,000 were provided. In 1929, the total was 51,000, and for 1930, 55,000. The first reduction of the subsidy took place in 1927, and consequently the local authorities brought into that year all the work they possibly could. After September, 1927, there was a general slump. There were 26,084 houses finished in the month of September, 1927, by local authorities under the Wheatley Act; 5,067 in the month of
October. That is to say, the houses were hurried on and then there was a great slump and, when we tame in, the local authorities, having made their plans, were working up for a minor boom to be followed by a minor slump in September, 1929. We were only able to restore the subsidy in July, 1929. We did have a small boom and a small slump. The figures went up to 8,670 in September and dropped to 6,234 in October.
I am not going to deal with this point without pointing out the enormous damage done to housing programmes by what was done in 1927 and in 1929. The local authorities for the last quarter seemed to have got over the shock that the right hon. Gentleman gave them. They are picking up nicely. I will give the figures for the first five months of 1928, 1929 and 1930 respectively. The number of houses finished shows a slight decrease from 20,411 in 1928 to 18,545 in 1929 and 17,986 in 1930, but the number of houses commenced in those months shows a quite satisfactory increase. The numbers commenced in the five months were 22,596 in 1928, 25,021 in 1929, and 26,222 in the first five months of 1930. So that, after having one boom and drop and then a smaller boom and drop, the local authorities are now coming forward with their work and getting into their regular stride. There was a discussion as to the figures for May, 1929, and May, 1930. The local authorities' figures are within a little the same. The figures for the local authorities under the Wheatley Act in May, 1929, were 4,134, and in May, 1930, 4,113. They have got over the shaking they received, and are going on.
The whole of the difference is that a large number of private enterprise houses got the subsidy that year, and therefore reached the number of assisted houses; and that—as I have explained—a large number of additional houses were built without subsidy in the following May. The hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) was a little wrong about the bargain with the building authority of my Friend the late Mr. Wheatley. The building trades did not care whether it was programme houses, subsidy houses, or what it was they were building. Their question was simply how many houses could be provided. That programme was based on the total number of houses
built of all kinds, and that programme has been kept up quite satisfactorily. And though it is true that the private enterprise houses are not much good to the poorer workers, they are just as much good to the bricklayers and workers in the buliding trade as any other houses.
I now turn to the figures for unemployment. Unemployment in the building trade is bad, and worse than it was last year. Unemployment figures in May this year are just about what they were in March last year, but there are two points I wish to put which show that, bad as the figures are, the deductions to be drawn from them are not so alarming as they might seem. The figures for April and May the previous year were swollen by the fact that in February there was in the building trade very little work. In February, 1929, the figure of unemployment among bricklayers was no less than 28.7 on account of the great frost. Then, with the going of the frost the February work of 1929 was thrown into March and April and May. So that I do not think the trade is any worse off than it was in 1929, though unemployment is undoubtedly exceptionally high.
Another matter which gives me some reasons for hope for the future, and which is particularly interesting in itself is this: The Ministry of Labour publish month by month an analysis of a number of building plans submitted by representative urban authorities. Those plans represent this year more money than in the corresponding period last year, and represent also a good many more houses and fewer factories and shops. The total value of the plans submitted in the typical sample made was £7,461,000 last May and £8,310,000 this May. That is the total of the sample taken. Houses were 55 per cent. of the total of the sample in May last, and are now 70 per cent. The rest of the buildings have dropped very considerably, particularly the building of shops, warehouses and offices. So that, as far as that sample goes, it appears to show that the demand for houses is greater and that there is not so much demand with regard to shops, warehouses and factories. That sample, if it is an index to the country as a whole, is a very cheerful sign. I think I have now disposed
of those points. [Interruption.] Of course, if hon. Members will not understand, they will not. There are more houses built this year than last.

Viscountess ASTOR: For the working classes?

Miss LAWRENCE: There are more houses built this year than last; there are more house built by the local authorities to rent for the working classes this year than last; the total number of houses building this year is more than last; the total number of houses built by private enterprise for sale or whatever they please is more than last year. Both classes are up, and the total is up for the year—ending in March in each case—and the only difference is that some of the private enterprise houses are not getting assistance. That is entirely different from the impression which the right hon. Gentleman gave.

Sir K. WOOD: Do you challenge my figures?

Miss LAWRENCE: The right hon. Gentleman has made the most fantastic and absurd deductions from figures. The right hon. Gentleman has treated private enterprise houses, when they did get subsidies, as houses for the working classes; and when they had no subsidies as not so available. State-assisted houses have fallen by the fact that the subsidy has gone off. That makes no difference to the number of houses.
Now I turn to some other subjects raised in the debate. It is quite pathetic how many times Members stray irresistibly into forbidden things, things forbidden by all the authority of the Chair, into what we are going to do, into what we are going to do about the Bill upstairs, into what we are going to do about legislation——

The CHAIRMAN: The Chair points out what is out of order, and not the Ministers.

Miss LAWRENCE: I say that the Chair forbade them——

The CHAIRMAN: We must keep to our Rules when talking, and the Minister must not in any way follow the example of other Members who have been called to order.

Miss LAWRENCE: All that I meant to say was that I regretted I could not follow them, and it was not due to any discourtesy or any feeling that the points they raised were not important but simply because the Chair would not allow them. It is significant how poor, except for these wild and strange figures, this debate has been. Members have uncommonly little to say against the administration of my right hon. Friend except these strange inferences given the figures of theirs. With regard to the rest, the whole of the debate has been an attempt to leap the hedges that the Chairman has very properly erected, and, if that is the worst to be said on the Ministry of Health Vote, I must say my right hon. Friend need not have been here. Any of us, the youngest of us, could have dealt with these points, and when they are seen in the OFFICIAL REPORT, a certain blush will come to the cheek of those who follow the right hon. Gentleman. I do not want to delay the other debate which is coming. I believe that it is the custom of all Ministers that I should have the privilege of winding up. I understand that courtesy is to be denied to me, a course which would not have been pursued with my right hon. Friend, but, when there is only a Parliamentary Secretary at the Box, then hon. Members opposite can break any custom of the House. There is one other point to which I must reply, namely, what was said about the absolute cessation of slum clearance schemes. It is quite true that we have advised local authorities to hold their hands until something happens to which I cannot refer. We are proposing a shortening of procedure, and we believe that the local authorities would gain more by waiting for this shortened procedure. I know they have been advised to hold their hands, and they will be much safer if they hold their hands until something has happened to which I cannot allude. As a matter of administration, I can say that we have advised local authorities to hold their hands for slum clearance until the new Housing Bill goes through the House. We have done so, first, because they will be safer, secondly, because the procedure will be quicker, and, thirdly, because they will be receiving more money. Those are good and sound reasons.

Lord E. PERCY rose——

HON. MEMBERS: Divide!

The CHAIRMAN: I understand that some arrangement has been made with reference to another debate, and, that being so, we want to expedite matters. I hope, therefore, that the Noble Lord will be allowed to proceed.

Lord E. PERCY: The hon. Lady knows me well enough to know that it is certainly not likely that I should be discourteous to her on the ground that she is an Under-Secretary, but I would remind her that it has been the, I think, invariable custom of the House that on Votes of Supply the Minister has always replied to the criticisms of the Opposition fairly early in the debate, and the Minister then has the complete and unchallenged right of winding up at the end of the debate. I do not, in all my experience of the House, remember a case in which the Minister has refrained from replying to criticisms made early in the debate, and assumed the right to make one speech, and one speech only, and that at the end of the debate.

Miss LAWRENCE: I would point out that it is very unusual to take a Supply Vote when the Minister is known to be absent, and when there is only one person present to reply.

Sir K. WOOD: That was by arrangement.

Lord E. PERCY: That was what I was coming to. I was going to say that, although the hon. Lady has been placed in that position, all of us who have been Under-Secretaries have been placed equally in the position of having to speak twice on Supply days. In view of the fact that the hon. Lady has been placed in that position, I do not want to address myself in any controversial spirit to the very controversial speech which she has made. Hon. Members opposite have been, during this debate, very restive at criticisms from this side of the Committee; indeed, they have been absurdly restive when one thinks of the conduct of members of the Labour party in previous Parliaments, both upstairs in Committee and here in this Chamber. They must, however, remember that criticisms of this kind, and even partisan speeches
on the Floor of the House or in Committee, serve a very useful purpose, and serve it very effectively. Their purpose is not only to throw odium upon ineffective government, but to clear out of the way outworn ideas; and the real characteristic of this debate has been that it has swept away once and for all an outworn idea to which hon. Members opposite have tied themselves for years past.
In debate after debate it has been said that the only way to get houses for the working classes, at rents which the working classes could pay, was by subsidies and more subsidies; and when we challenge the hon. Lady and the Government, and say to them: "Look at the result of your policy. You are building fewer subsidised houses; the production of subsidised houses has gone down since you came into office," the hon. Lady replies that the total number of houses, subsidised and unsubsidised, has increased. She says that the calculation of my right hon. Friend who was Minister of Health in the last Government was correct, and that the production of houses has not been lessened by taking away the subsidy, but, on the contrary, has tended to increase, and private enterprise has been able to get on with the building of houses without subsidy.
That is the hon. Lady's reply, and I am thankful for it. Of course, she tries to qualify it by saying that at any rate the production of assisted houses under the Wheatley Act has gone up, but I would remind her that the very table to which she has referred shows that in May, 1928, there were 32,244 houses under construction by the local authorities under the Wheatley Act; that in May, 1929, there were 34,071, and in May, 1930, there were 31,995. There were fewer assisted houses under construction last May under the Wheatley Act than there were in May of the year before. That is the measure of the real situation under the Wheatley Act. That, however, is comparatively unimportant. The important thing is that this debate has marked the final discarding by the present Government, if not by hon. Members on the back benches opposite, of their old Socialist superstition that the only way to build houses for the working classes crag by heavier and heavier subsidies.
Having got away from that idea, let them never get back to it; let the Labour party get rid of that tin can which has been tied to their tails and with which they have gone clattering across politics for so many years past. That outworn idea having been got rid of, what is to be put in its place?
One most remarkable speech, among other remarkable speeches to-day, was that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Sir T. Walters). He tried to address himself to the problem of the future, and the special needs of the future, but even he did not say what I should like to say. Would it not strike any visitant from another planet to this House, or any man in the street visiting this House, as peculiar that, during the whole of this debate, we have been talking about subsidising the building of houses and encouraging local authorities, but we have not even mentioned the instrument by which the houses have to be produced—the building industry itself? What is the fact about housing which sticks out of the whole situation in this country? It is that, as compared with the United States, in spite of the higher wages in the United States, in spite of the higher cost of living there, the cost of building is not only relatively, but absolutely and positively, lower than it is in this country.
That is a scandal. How do you propose to build houses for the working classes when, with a lower standard of living, cheaper wages, and cheaper costs all round, you cannot in this country build even as cheaply as the United States That is the great question that is before us. It may be that, as the hon. Lady the Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone) said, we should have various types of subsidy. It may be necessary to subsidise various types of houses. But we none of us regard that as an ideal. Even those who wish to see rents determined on the number of dependent children in the family dislike the process of inquiry into family circumstances in order to fix the rent that the family shall pay. That is not a kind of policy which is ideal for a country of free men and free women. We know that what we need to do is to get down the cost of building in relation to the general level of wages in this
country, and it is, let us say so frankly, the inefficiency of the building industry—trade unions, employers, and the producers of building material—the inefficiency of the organisation of the whole industry as compared with its efficiency in the United States, that makes the greatest difficulty in satisfying the working-class demand for houses at cheap rents. That, however, is the one thing which the Ministry of Health under this Government, and even under our own Government, has never tackled.
Now is the time when it can be tackled, when the building industry has a council sitting composed of members representing the trade unions, the producers of building materials, and the builders themselves. That council has been considering the reorganisation of the building industry for a long period, and has not been getting on very fast. What have the Government done, and what are they doing, to help the industry on, to encourage it to reorganise, and to assist it in reorganising? What influence do hon. Members opposite propose to exert to see that, if the employers do their part, the trade unions will do theirs in a comprehensive organisation of the industry, to make it more efficient and to make its processes and methods cheaper? I know that this is a subject that is never talked about in housing debates. We talk about the local authorities, and the machinery of administration, but the only solution of a problem like the housing problem is not subsidies, but an industrial policy which will enable the State and the building industry to join together in a great campaign to build cheap houses. It can be done if the Government of the country will think first about the efficiency of the industry, and only second about the administration of the local authorities and about providing money for subsidies. That is the only true line of advance, and it is chiefly because we utterly despair of the present Government ever having a realist industrial policy of that kind that we are going to divide against this Vote.

Mr. J. JONES: After listening to the expert on building, I desire, as a bricklayer's labourer—retired—to indulge in a few observations. Firstly, I want to say that the local authorities have been handicapped all the way through, and,
unfortunately for our friends on the opposite benches, they have been handicapped by the reactionary nature of their constitution. They have taken advantage of every excuse to prevent this Government from doing anything. The less the Government have done, the better they have liked them, and now they come along and say, "Give us more subsidies; give us more public money without our having to pay anything, and then everything in the garden will be lovely." That is one of the objects of hon. Gentlemen opposite—to let the State bear all the expense. [Interruption.] Some hon. Gentlemen opposite advance the argument that the local authorities could not be expected to find the money, and the money must be found by the State. Who are the State? Do not the local authorities form part of the State? I come from one of them, one of the poorest in the country, but we have always been willing to take our share of any financial responsibility in dealing with these problems of housing, unemployment, and the other matters which arise there-from.
What is the situation with regard to the building trade? We have a national Council of the Building Trade, representing the workers, the employers, and the people engaged in the production of the materials necessary for the building trade; and the same people who are talking about reducing the cost of producing houses are talking about Safeguarding in the matter of building materials. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] You cannot have it both ways. You may allow cheap Belgian bricks to come in, and you cannot say that you are going to have cheaper houses unless you introduce materials of a cheaper character. Really what the Noble Lord means is that the workers' wages must be brought down still more, and then we shall be able to have cheaper houses.

Lord E. PERCY: No. May I point out to the hon. Member that my whole analogy was with the United States, where wages are much higher and yet building costs are much lower?

Mr. JONES: And where rents are practically impossible. I have not travelled so far as the Noble Lord. When I was in America last I spent seven weeks in hospital. I discovered that for two rooms in Montreal they were paying
28s. a week rent. [HON. MEMBERS: "Canada !"] I know it is Canada. It is worse in the United States. I am only giving an illustration under British rule. The Minister of Health has tried, to the best of his ability, to meet the building trade, both employers and employed. Trusts and combines have been created inside the trade itself, putting up the cost of material in every way they can, and asking the workers to back them to try to create a protective policy. What do they mean by reducing the cost of building? Can you reduce the cost of building by adopting a policy of protection against competition inside the industry? It is not merely a question of competition from foreign countries. It is trying to prevent competition inside our own country, and they have already got together. We have a cement combine and a steel combine working together to keep prices up and to put wages down. Only this last week a demand has been made upon the trade unionists representing labourers in the building trade for a penny an hour reduction, and the same people are sending out circulars to their customers asking for a 25 per cent. increase in prices. Is that the way you are going to get cheaper housing? Up go the profits of the employers in the building trade and down go the wages of the

workmen. It is a game we are not having anything of.

The Noble Lord's knowledge of building arises from the fact that he has lived in a big building all his life. I have been in a big building, too, but it was a prison. There is no fair and square deal for the workers. The employers' perpetual demand is for reduced wages, and at the same time they are asking for Safeguarding. If they want Protection, let them give us a guarantee that we are going to have a square deal. I am sorry if I have transgressed. I always do. I have broken the Rules so often that I have almost forgotten the possibility of keeping them. The workers in the building trade have suffered a reduction of 2½d. an hour in London during the past four years. Has the cost of building gone down? What have you gained, those of you who give them contracts? Have you gained the 2½d. an hour? It is always heads they win, and tails we lose. If there is going to be any understanding in connection with housing, there will have to be a fair and square deal, and the workers must get consideration.

Question put. "That a sum, not exceeding £12,724,100, be granted for the said Service."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 148; Noes, 229.

Division No. 392.]
AYES.
[7.28 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut-Colonel
Colfox, Major William Philip
Greene, W. P. Crawford


Albery, Irving James
Colman, N. C. D.
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.)
Colville, Major D. J.
Gunston, Captain D. W.


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Courtauld, Major J. S.
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wllfrid W.
Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)


Astor, Viscountess
Crichton-Stuart, Lord C.
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)


Atholl, Duchess of
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Hartington, Marquess of


Atkinson, C.
Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)
Haslam, Henry C.


Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W.
Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)
Dalrymple-White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey
Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller


Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet)
Davies, Dr. Vernon
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.


Balniel, Lord
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)


Berry, Sir George
Dawson, Sir Philip
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer


Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)
Duckworth, G. A. V.
Hurd, Percy A.


Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Dugdale, Capt. T. L.
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.


Bird, Ernest Roy
Eden, Captain Anthony
Iveagh, Countess of


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Kindersley, Major G. M.


Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W.
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston s-M.)
King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D.


Bracken, B.
Everard, W. Lindsay
Knox, Sir Alfred


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Lamb, Sir J. Q.


Butt, Sir Alfred
Ferguson, Sir John
Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak)


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Fermoy, Lord
Leighton, Major B. E. P.


Carver, Major W. H.
Fielden, E. B.
Llewellin, Major J. J.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Ford, Sir P. J.
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Forestler-Walker, Sir L.
Lymington, Viscount


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)
Ganzoni, Sir John
Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)


Chadwick, Capt. Sir Robert Burton
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Makins, Brigadier-General E.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Gower, Sir Robert
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester)


Muirhead, A. J.
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.
Thomson, Sir F.


Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Salmon, Major I.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon


O'Connor, T. J.
Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert


Peake, Capt. Osbert
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.
Wayland, Sir William A.


Penny, Sir George
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)
Wells, Sydney R.


Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Windsor-CIive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Purbrick, R.
Smithers, Waldron
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Ramsbotham, H.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Withers, Sir John James


Remer, John R.
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)
Womersley, W. J.


Rentoul, Sir Gervals S.
Southby, Commander A. R. J.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Reynolds, Col. Sir James
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.



Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch't'sy)
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)
Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland)
Captain Margesson and Captain


Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Wallace.


Ross, Major Ronald D.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F.



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)
McGovern, J. (Glasgow, Shettleston)


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Gray, Milner
Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.)


Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigie M.
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
MacNeill-Weir, L.


Alpass, J. H.
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)
McShane, John James


Arnott, John
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)


Aske, Sir Robert
Groves, Thomas E.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Grundy, Thomas W.
March, S.


Ayles, Walter
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Markham, S. F.


Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Marley, J.


Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)
Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.)
Marshall, Fred


Barnes, Alfred John
Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn)
Mathers, George


Barr, James
Harbord, A.
Matters, L. W.


Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)
Hardie, George D.
Maxton, James


Bellamy, Albert
Harris, Percy A.
Messer, Fred


Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Middleton, G.


Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N. (Cardiff C.)
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Mills, J. E.


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Haycock, A. W.
Montague, Frederick


Benson, G.
Hayes, John Henry
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Bentham, Dr. Ethel
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Morley, Ralph


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)
Morris, Rhys Hopkins


Blindell, James
Herriotts, J.
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)


Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret
Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)
Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)


Bowen, J. W.
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Mort, D. L.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hoffman, P. C.
Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent)


Broad, Francis Alfred
Hopkin, Daniel
Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick)


Brockway, A. Fenner
Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)
Murnin, Hugh


Brooke, W.
Hunter, Dr. Joseph
Nathan, Major H. L.


Brothers, M.
Hutchison, Maj.-Gen. Sir R.
Naylor, T. E.


Grown, Ernest (Leith)
Isaacs, George
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Noel Baker, P. J.


Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Oldfield, J. R.


Burgess, F. G.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon)


Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland)
Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)
Palin, John Henry


Cameron, A. G.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Palmer, E. T.


Cape, Thomas
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.)
Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Perry, S. F.


Charleton, H. C.
Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Chater, Daniel
Kelly, W. T.
Picton-Turbervill, Edith


Cluse, W. S.
Kennedy, Thomas
Pole, Major D. G.


Cocks, Frederick Seymour.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Potts, John S.


Compton, Joseph
Kinley, J.
Price, M. P.


Cowan, D. M.
Lang, Gordon
Pybus, Percy John


Daggar, George
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George
Ramsay, T. B. Wilson


Dallas, George
Lathan, G.
Raynes, W. R.


Dalton, Hugh
Law, A. (Rosendale)
Richards, R.


Davies, E. C. (Montgomery)
Lawrence, Susan
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge)
Riley, F. F. (Stockton-on-Tees)


Dickson, T.
Lawson, John James
Ritson, J.


Dukes, C.
Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)
Romeril, H. G.


Ede, James Chuter
Leach, W.
Rowson, Guy


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Edwards, E. (Morpeth)
Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)
Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West)


Elmley, Viscount
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Sanders, W. S.


Foot, Isaac
Lindley, Fred W.
Sandham, E.


Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Logan, David Gilbert
Sawyer, G. F.


Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley)
Longbottom, A. W.
Scrymgeour, E.


Gill, T. H.
Lowth, Thomas
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Gillett, George M.
Lunn, William
Shield, George William


Glassey, A. E.
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Gossling, A. G.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Shillaker, J. F.


Gould, F.
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Sinkinson, George


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
McElwee, A.
Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)




Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)
Thurtle, Ernest
Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)


Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Tinker, John Joseph
Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)


Smith, Tom (Pontefract)
Townend, A. E.
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Smith, W. R. (Norwich)
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Snell, Harry
Vaughan, D. J.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Viant, S. P.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Sorensen, R.
Walkden, A. G.
Wilson, J. (Oldham)


Stamford, Thomas W.
Walker, J.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Stephen, Campbell
Wallace, H. W.
Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)


Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Wallhead, Richard C.
Wright, W. (Rutherglen)


Strachey, E. J. St. Loe
Watkins, F. C.



Strauss, G. R.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Sullivan, J.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah
Mr. William Whiteley and Mr.


Sutton, J. E.
Wellock, Wilfred
Paling.


Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Welsh, James (Paisley)

Original Question again proposed.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again," put, and agreed to.—[Mr. T. Kennedy.]

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Mr. THURTLE: I beg to move:
That this House is of opinion that, since a Channel Tunnel can be constructed by private enterprise without any financial assistance from the State, and since the Channel Tunnel Committee has reported its construction to be of definite economic advantage to this country, and in view of the fact that such a tunnel, in addition to providing immediate employment, would be of great advantage to British trade and industry in future years by providing better transport between this country and the Continent, every facility should be given for the project to be undertaken at the earliest possible opportunity.
In moving the Motion standing in my name asking that every facility should be given for the project known as the Channel Tunnel, I should like to take advantage of the opportunity of congratulating those who are responsible for having provided an opportunity for Parliamentary discussion of this subject. I think that his House very often discusses matters in which the people only take a very mild interest, but this is a matter upon which there is very wide and keen interest amongst our electors. Therefore, I think that it is very desirable that a discussion of this kind should take place. Incidentally, it is some 20 odd years ago since Parliament discussed this project. I should like, at the same time, to congratulate the Government upon having come to a decision of allowing a free vote on this issue. By that free vote I understand that every Member of the House will be entitled to record his vote according to his convictions
on the project, and I should like to express the hope that no obstacle will be put in the way of that vote being recorded at the end of our discussion. With that aim in view, those of us who are supporting the Motion are going to restrict the length of our speeches so that the onus for prolonging the debate will not rest upon us.
I would suggest that really there is something bigger than the Channel Tunnel which is involved in this issue. We are discussing to-night a test as to the power of the democracy. This project has been held up now for 50 years, and I think that it is not unfair to say that it has been held up, not because of popular opinion, but because of a clash between popular opinion and bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy has won, and at the present time is still holding the field. It is often urged against this House that this country is not governed by Parliament, but is governed by what is called permanent officialdom. I should not like to subscribe to that entirely as a general doctrine, but I think that it is very largely true as far as the Channel Tunnel project is concerned. There has been widespread popular support for the project, but there has been permanent officialdom steadily against it. The British public is very respectful and, I think I may say, even deferential towards what may be called expert opinion, but there are times when the public becomes impatient with the experts, and I think that this is an occasion of that kind. We are coming to the conclusion that on this matter of the Channel Tunnel the experts are seeking to impose, as it were upon our ignorance, and I think that we are going to have a revolt against that kind of dictatorship of the bureaucracy. I believe that popular opinion is now saying to this House, "Never mind about the old-fashioned prejudices of the naval and military
advisers which are now largely obsolete. Never mind about the economic arguments in the White Paper which can be shown to have no real basis. Never mind about these things. We want this Channel Tunnel and we want you, the Members of Parliament, to exercise the power which you possess in order to see that we get it."
The latest statement of the official position is contained in the White Paper which was issued this month. The House will remember that the Peacock Committee was appointed by the late Conservative Government to consider the economic aspects of the problem. Alter a very exhaustive inquiry the Peacock Committee, composed of five very eminent business men, came to the conclusion that the construction of the Tunnel would be an economic advantage to the country. This recommendation was signed by all five members. It is true that one of the members, in addition to signing the report, also signed a dissenting minute in which he qualified his support of this proposal. Following this favourable report on the economic issue, we get that extraordinary White Paper. I have to apply the adjective "extraordinary" to it, because it is an extraordinary document. It is a most unconvincing apologia for the status quo. It has been issued by the Labour Government, it is true, but its tone—and I say this more in sorrow than in anger—has the authentic note of Conservatism. I hope that I shall not alienate any Conservative support by making that remark, but such is the fact. This White Paper, like all White Papers, is anonymous. Therefore, without wounding anyone's feelings, I can say that this White Paper is really much below the general standard of such White Papers in regard to its argumentative and intellectual quality. It is a very weak document, indeed.
I will deal with some of its arguments. There is geological doubt as to whether a tunnel would be possible, and the engineers say that before that doubt can be resolved, it is necessary to have a pilot tunnel constructed. That pilot tunnel will cost, it is estimated, 5,600,000. The White Paper makes this a point against the construction of the Tunnel. I would point out that of this £5,600,000, only half of the sum would have to be found in this country; the
other half would be found in France. It would be spread over a period of five years, because that is the estimated time of the construction of the pilot tunnel. Therefore, you get an annual expenditure of, roughly, £500,000 a year. Why should the Government turn round and say that it is unwise to permit private enterprise to spend £500,000 a year for five years on a project which might turn out to a very valuable piece of constructive work, and all the time, month after month, and year after year, they are allowing much greater sums of money to be spent on much wilder, more speculative and more fantastic schemes? [Interruption.] No, I will not go into the other schemes.
The White Paper makes the point that considerable capital would be rendered unproductive by this scheme. That is to say, that the small ships which are now trading in the cross-Channel services and some of the harbour services would become unproductive capital. No one denies that fact. But is not that process true of any kind of development scheme? Every time you construct a great main road you render, to some extent, the capital of the competing railway route unproductive. Every step you take in connection with the rationalisation of a great industry like the steel industry, you immobilise whole steel works, and every time you do that you are bound to put a certain amount of capital out of productive employment. It is true of practically every scheme of development of which one can think. If you are going to make progress, and if you are going to have new plant or to reorganise your plant, a certain amount of capital inevitably is bound to become unproductive, and, therefore, I say that this argument is a weak argument and cannot hold water. Besides, the Southern Railway Company, which is the chief concern likely to be affected by this development, would take very good care to see—as it would be within its rights in doing—that it was amply compensated for any loss of capital.
The contention is that by issuing a licence the Government would be wholly responsible for providing funds. That is one of the arguments of the White Paper, and it is an argument which cannot be substantiated. The report says definitely that no public money should be used for
this purpose and the Motion on the Order Paper says that no public money should be used for this purpose. If the Government, when they issue a licence, expressly declare that they wash their hands of the project, that it is entirely at the risk of the promoters, who cannot hope to get any financial support from the Government, if the Government take up that stand from the very outset, as they would be entitled to do on the report, then, at no future time, can there be held to be any responsibility resting upon the Government, moral or otherwise, to provide capital for the furtherance of the project.
8.0 p.m.
Perhaps the most fantastic argument of all in this very remarkable Paper is the argument which is advanced to the effect that the spending of this money on this project will have an adverse effect upon the capital requirements for industrial purposes. What is the drain on British capital which is going to take place by this project? As I have said, half of the money can be raised in France, so that only half of the money will have to be raised in the British market. I understand that if we like to widen our appeal, it will be possible to get money for this project from America. But assuming that the whole amount has to be found between this country and France, what is the drain upon our capital resources? In the first five years, as I have already explained, it will be £500,000 a year. In the next three years it will be £4,000,000 a year. Who is there who is going seriously to consider that the pool of British capital cannot afford to have these sums drawn from it for this piece of constructive work in the course of the next eight years. I do not think that anyone ought to come to this House and argue in that direction. We may have short memories. If we turn our minds back for the past two years and remember what was happening in this country two years ago, we recall the fact that millions upon millions of new capital were being provided in this country for all sorts of wildcat schemes, for every possible kind of invention and device which could be thought of in the fertile brain of a company promoter. At least £50,000,000 was raised on the Stock Exchange in the last
two years, and most of that money has been wasted. There was no restriction by the Government of that kind of thing. Why, then, should the Government now say that, in the course of eight years, £15,000,000 for a sound constructive piece of work is money which will be a heavy drain upon the pool of British capital? That is not treating the House with proper respect. It is rating our intelligence far too low to put an argument like that before us.
I have dealt with the main economic objections as set forth in the White Paper. Now, I should like to say a few words about the so-called military objections. This document seems to me to read like something that is not straightforward. It seems to me that the economic objections which are put forward are not the real objections to the scheme and that they are being put forward as a screen to hide the fact that the military and naval objections are still preventing the Channel Tunnel from being constructed. To see how very imperfect this screen is one has only to consider the White Paper. What is the military position? As far as I can see from the White Paper, they have changed their ground of opposition. They no longer say that it would be a fatal thing from the point of view of security to have the Channel Tunnel, but they say that it would cost a lot of money adequately to protect it. The lot of money in the terms of the White Paper amounts to something like £1,000,000. That may be a considerable sum, but it is only half the cost of one of our great battleships. [HON. MEMBERS: "A battleship costs £6,000,000 or £7,000,000!"] I have put my estimate much too low. The cost would only be one-fourth or one-seventh of the cost of a great battleship. It is certainly very small in comparison with the cost of a battleship. Even this charge of £1,000,000 as a capital charge could be spread over the eight years during which the Tunnel would be in course of construction, so that it would mean only £125,000 a year.
The only other charge which the military people mention is that of the garrison—the cost of maintaining the garrison. The House ought not to take that statement seriously. If a certain number of soldiers are required at the
end of the Tunnel, or if a certain number of airmen are required, well, we have lots of soldiers and airmen, and if they are located somewhere near the end of the Tunnel they will not be elsewhere. Therefore, I cannot see that that will impose a very great additional burden upon the country. The military position is not being stated honestly and squarely in the White Paper, because one discovers this astonishing sentence in the report:
The military authorities are unable to discover any single military advantage in the scheme.
The House ought not to accept that statement. This scheme might become a drawback and possibly a liability if we entered into war with France. Let us admit that But that is not the only contingency which the military authorities ought to have in mind. I hate to envisage the possibility of war, because that seems to be madness in these days, but, looking at the matter from the strictly utilitarian point of view, the military authorities ought to envisage the contingency that a war might occur in which as in the last war, we were the allies of France, and working with France, in which circumstances the Tunnel would certainly be of very distinct military advantage. I draw attention to this point, not because I want to envisage the possibility of war, but because in this White Paper the military authorities have not given us an accurate view of the situation; they have given us a distorted and one-sided view.
I do not wish to stress the employment aspect of the question. We must realise that when we have something approaching 2,000,000 people unemployed, the contribution which this scheme could make towards solving that problem is very small. I do not burke that issue. The employment will amount, possibly, to 4,000 or 5,000 men being kept at work for eight years. That is very small, but even so it is worth while bearing in mind. This is a big piece of constructive work, and this country is not to-day in a position when it can afford to jeer at the possibility of employing even a few thousand men on constructive work. Certainly, those few thousands of men would welcome the chance of being able to do useful work rather than eat the bread of idleness as they are doing at the present time. This project appeals to different
people for different reasons. It makes its appeal to me almost entirely because I view it as a great European and international piece of construction. If we decide to go on with the Tunnel it would be an act of peace, it would be a gesture of confidence to the world, and it would be in line with the growing sense of the community of interests of all the countries which make up the Continent of Europe. It is a scheme which strikes the imagination of our people and which would make a great appeal to the world, and if the Members of this House will record their approval of it to-night they will be doing credit to themselves, and something which the great mass of the electors want them to do.

Sir BASIL PETO: I beg to second the Motion.
My doing so is a clear indication that, whatever differences of opinion there may be about the Tunnel, they are not upon party lines. I wish to congratulate the Government on the fact that it is quite clear they realise that this is a very imporant issue to the country and one far beyond the measurement of ordinary £ s. d. considerations. I am glad that the Prime Minister is here, and that the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Transport are here. That fact indicates that the Government realise that it is a very important issue that we have to consider by a free vote of the House to-night. I am not always in complete agreement with the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle), although we have points of contact in which we are in complete agreement. On this matter my hon. Friend's speech will enable me to curtail even more than I had intended the remarks that I propose to address to the House. The one thing about which I am most anxious is that no lengthy speech on behalf of the Channel Tunnel by any hon. Member, still less by the mover and seconder of the Motion, should deprive us of the privilege of settling this matter, as far as it can be settled, by a single vote, or of giving the country an indication of the present opinion of the House of Commons on the matter.
I am not going to touch upon the defence side of the question beyond saying that, although I do not claim to have any right to speak on matters of high military strategy, I think it is a point of
common agreement that in the late War it would have been of enormous advantage to us had we been able to hold, as we inevitably should have been able to hold, the bridgehead of the Tunnel, and if we had had the Tunnel as a means of communication throughout the four and a-half years of the war. I have asked the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) his view on that subject and, although he will not be able to speak in our debate to-night, I know his view and I think I have correctly stated it. I want to deal with the trade question and how much the Tunnel would affect the flow of tourist traffic to and from this country. There are a great many people in this country who are very much afraid of what would be the trade effect of opening up better means of communication with the Continent. It is curious to find that there is any large body of opinion in this country that is afraid of improving the means of transport between this country and the Continent of Europe. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce expressed the true view on this question more clearly than any other of the great bodies of trade opinion in this country which have been consulted. They said:
Any extension of efficient facilities for transport and communication must of necessity lead to extended trade, as transportation would be definitely quicker and the existence of the Channel Tunnel would make possible trade which has never been contemplated before.
I would emphasise that point of view. Throughout the history of this country we have always been first and foremost in opening up means of communication with other parts of the world, and every time we have opened up any means of communication with the rest of the world new lines of trade and business have been opened up which would never have been thought of without that new method of communication. The Committee in their report say:
The construction of the Channel Tunnel by creating new traffic and thus increasing trade would be of economic advantage to this country.
Against that, there is another point of view. We are told that to open up a new method and quicker communication with the Continent would mean a quicker flood of early vegetables into this country
from France. We have the north side of the Channel; we have the south aspect. All our market gardens along the whole of the South Coast face the sun. We are now growing, as we were reminded during the last General Election, broccoli—I am not, afraid of reminding hon. Members of that—and we managed to send that broccoli by some devious route right into the centre of Germany. That was a single effort of a single county, and only a small part of that county; and there is nothing in our climate or in our soil, or in British agricultural enterprise, which makes it necessary for us to assume that we are not only second but a hopeless "also ran," in the race between rival countries in producing the goods which the world requires. If we are going to give it up, if we have not sufficient enterprise, if we are going to say that we cannot do these things and that we are going to pursue a policy of isolation, then by all means close the Channel. [An HON. MEMBER: "Safety first!"] There is the tariff method for regulating trade, and we do not want to close any means of communication while we have a much more scientific method of doing what is best for our own people.
Then there is the question of the tourist traffic. Here the issue is exactly the same. If we are so hopelessly behind that we can offer no attractions to anybody, and that all that will happen if we open up communications with all parts of the Continent through the Channel Tunnel is that a still larger number of English people will travel on the Continent and visit Continental resorts, if we are unable to attract the population of the Continent to these islands, let alone our own American cousins, again I say by all means close ale Channel and do away with the Channel steamers. If it is to be always a flow out from this little island, and that nobody is coming here to visit us, the less communications we have the better. But what is the real situation? There are at the other end of the Channel Tunnel 450,000,000 people in Europe. We have at this end 45,000,000. Are we so hopeless that with a ten to one advantage in our favour we have not the courage to open up this means of transport We do not mind the sea; traditionally we are used to it, we rather like it. Some people may get sick
going across, but that is part of the adventure. But take your American, your luxurious American, with a pile of dollars which he wants to spend somewhere in Europe. He loathes and detests the Channel crossing. Take your average German or Dutchman, he hates it, too.
The opening up of the Channel Tunnel would do a great deal to bring a large influx of continental population to these islands. In 1927 a quarter of a million rich Americans, who never set foot in these islands, came over here on a visit to Europe mainly because they found it more convenient to get off at Cherbourg. There was the trouble afterwards of tackling the Channel crossing, and these islands were not considered worth while including in the tour. I have thrashed out the matter with my constituents at Ilfracombe, which is the only pleasure resort in my constituency, and they are quite prepared to take the risk. They believe that a large number of Americans who now land on the other side would land at Plymouth. It would be an advantage to our shipping. They would land there knowing that they could visit Paris, after taking a tour across North Devon and Dartmoor with scenery absolutely unrivalled in Europe, and by means of the Channel Tunnel, do the rest of their tour. I am certain that that would be the result, and that an enormous amount of American tourist money which is now spent exclusively on the Continent would come to the help of our seaside resorts. On the question as to whether it would pay, nobody can say whether any commercial enterprise will pay. That is an undoubted fact, but on all the close estimates which have been made by eminent engineers,, and the estimates of traffic by the Committee itself, and the cost of maintenance, which is put at £500,000 a year, whereas the Channel Tunnel Company allow in their figures £1,000,000, allowing for all these things, it is a 10 per cent. proposition taking all classes of stock as far as anybody can estimate the result of this enterprise. In the face of that, why should the Government say, when they are supporting schemes of all sorts for the provision of employment up to an extent of 90 per cent., and in some selected areas even up to 100 per cent., that if the public like to subscribe to this scheme without any assistance from
the Government they are not to be allowed to do so? That is the position.
Let me summarise what I have to say in this way. Those who object are really objecting to improvements in transport; they say that it is not desirable. That is a policy of funk; and has never succeeded in any political programme or any commercial enterprise. I dislike it as much in politics as I do in commerce. We have been first and foremost in putting machinery into ships and in initiating railway enterprises. My father was one of the first railway contractors in this country, and the objections which were raised to the railways are exactly the same as those which are raised against the Channel Tunnel to-day. Those objections were swept aside because the country believed in its destiny. If we cannot dare to make a Channel Tunnel, it means that we want a policy of isolation. That implies that we believe that this country is decadent and afraid to meet not only its enemies in the gate, but its competitors and its friends as well. If this country is decadent, if the British Lion is sick, let it seek some cave of isolation. Throughout the animal kingdom when any animal is about to die and is pretty nearly done, it seeks isolation and solitude, and that is the policy of those who oppose the Channel Tunnel.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): All that I need do this evening, I think, is to summarise the situation as the Government saw it when they came to the conclusion embodied in the White Paper. I am very glad that an opportunity has been found for this discussion. It is not only an important discussion, but it has presented us with such an unusual spectacle of political unity that that in itself justifies the time that is to be devoted to the discussion—not only political unity, but a very interesting change in political views and principles, for my hon. Friend who moved the Motion, after having demonstrated that a great piece of railway development was bound to pay, asked the House, not that the Government should find the money for that development, but that it should be handed over without let or hindrance or qualification to unrestricted private enterprise. That is a very happy interlude, and I hope that the good humour which it will undoubtedly en-
gender will assist the further items of our business during the course of this week.
The point regarding this matter is, however, not whether a Channel Tunnel would pay, but also whether in relation to national interests it ought to be built. There are two points. The resolution deals with one. But the House in voting will keep both in mind, I hope. We have to consider that it is the Government's responsibility to come to a decision, that the Government has never come to a decision on this subject without first of all having consulted the leaders of the other parties in the House and gained their consent to the decision which it had reached. That has been the case in this instance. The two right hon. Gentlemen, he who leads the Opposition and he who leads the Liberal party, are at one with us in the decision to which we have come.
What is the situation I confess that I began in favour of the Channel Tunnel. In 1924, when it was first of all my duty to preside over a meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which had to consider this matter, I was profoundly dissatisfied because a conclusion was reached mainly on military considerations. I did not feel that that was the last word or that it ought to be the last word. There were economic considerations and there were political considerations, and I felt that sooner or later, if a last word was to be said, it could not be said by the soldier or by those who were responsible for military operations, but it would be said by the trader and by those responsible for the political interests of the country. We have now had our opportunity.
Our predecessors appointed a committee of inquiry. In 1927 that committee made its report. I hope that hon. Members will read the report from the first point of view that I have indicated. The Channel Tunnel is not purely a business enterprise. Unite the Dover side in this country with France on the other side of the Channel, and you have made a tremendous change, political and economic as well as military. Is that right? Is that change good or is it bad? That is the first question which we have to consider. Quite obviously, whether the change is good or bad the national interest point of view and aspect will always be of such tremendous importance
that the Government must hold in its hands the responsibility of dealing with the fate of that Tunnel should certain events arise. What, therefore, is the use of handing this over to private enterprise?
My hon. Friend indicated, and I saw a paragraph in a newspaper the other day indicating the same thing—that outside capital was to be asked for, for the construction of this Tunnel. Nothing could be more objectionable than that. If private capital is going to construct this Tunnel that capital ought to belong and belong only to the two nations primarily concerned, in whose hands the fate of the tunnel must rest, irrespective of outside financial and capitalistic influences and pressures being brought to bear upon the responsible Governments. Therefore, that is first of all a very important point. Our share of the capital must be found by ourselves and from ourselves and be held internally by this country, so that if the Government is bound in certain circumstances to destroy the property, it has to deal with its own nationals and not the nationals of other countries.

Mr. THURTLE: If you will let us do that I understand that the capital can be found.

The PRIME MINISTER: My hon. Friend is still wedded, I am sorry to see, to private enterprise.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Why not?

The PRIME MINISTER: My argument deals only with my hon. Friend and his appeal to his hon. Friends around him. That is not all. We have had it clearly indicated by this investigation that expert opinion is doubtful whether the Tunnel is practical. It will not commit itself to more than that. "We hesitate to say that they,"—(the possible obstacles)—" would be insurmountable." In order to find out whether they were insurmountable a capital of £5,000,000 has to be raised. But not a halfpenny of the £5,000,000 can be spent in discovering this without the sanction of the Government. The £5,000,000 is to be spent on making a pilot tunnel, but the pilot tunnel itself is of no use unless in consequence of its success, traffic tunnels at a cost of from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 are to be made afterwards. That is the situation; and yet it is argued that the
Government in a lighthearted way can say, "We will give a licence for the driving of a pilot tunnel, but if you fail financially, though you may be succeeding from the engineering point of view, after spending the £5,000,000 that is generally believed to be a considerable underestimate—if that situation arises, at any moment when the capital is spent, and when no further credit can be found, not for the £5,000,000 but for the £30,000,000, the Government having given the licence is not morally bound to come in under such conditions as that and supply capital in order to continue the exploration." [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]
I want to say quite plainly so that there should be no doubt whatever about it, that if I were a member of a Government which issued a licence to encourage people to subscribe this money, I should feel myself morally bound, if the enterprise failed for want of money, to stand by that enterprise and see it through. There is absolutely no other position that could be taken up by a Government. Therefore, as a matter of fact, in actual business and political and Governmental honour, a Government cannot say to a private enterprise like this; "We give you leave; we must believe that there is a chance of success first in providing the Tunnel and then in working it, but if you find you cannot raise your money, we are going to wash our hands of the whole thing." Supposing a Government did take that view, I am perfectly certain the pressure brought upon that Govern merit would be almost irresistible. They would be simply opening a new chapter of uncertainty regarding this Tunnel, and, while declaring themselves absolutely free except as regards the issue of the licence, they would be putting ropes around their shoulders and upon their necks on which, when certain circumstances arose, they would be asked to pull and from which they would be expected to get some results. That is the first point. The position of the Government is that recognition is practically an invitation and would be used by the company promoters as an invitation to private shareholders and private capitalists to subscribe. We cannot recognise or encourage that.
Then we come to the next point. This Tunnel is not merely an expansion of railway enterprise. This Tunnel should
only be built if its advantages to the country are perfectly clear and very commonly agreed upon. But what do we find? We find, for instance, that as regards cheapness of transport which has so often been advocated that the committee which investigated the subject says nothing about that at all. It holds out no hope that the cost of transport can be Cheapened, and its estimates at various points of the report assume that the cost of transport is to remain what it is now. Take the question of trade. The agricultural interests are definitely opposed to the Tunnel. It may be true, though I am not so sure that it is true, that broccoli growers find much impediment in the present means of transport; but, whether they do or not, the present means of transport were sufficiently efficient to enable them to put their products into the heart of Germany, and that on the first go-off. What more do they want than that?

Sir B. PETO: More efficient means of transport.

The PRIME MINISTER: More efficient transport—when at the first go off they did this. It is perfectly simple and plain to see that if that trade were properly organised it would not find any impediment whatever in the present means of transport, in view of the result of the experiment of last year. Not only that. Take the wider field of industries in this country. The great bodies, the chambers of commerce, and so on, were consulted, and this is the report presented by the Committee on the general result of the consultations—that these bodies have, in the main, been reluctant to commit themselves to any definite view on the effect of a Channel Tunnel. That is the combined opinion of the industrial organisations. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce was quoted, but the Manchester Chamber of Commerce was one in a very email minority of equally important chambers of commerce. Opinions vary but, undoubtedly, the great bulk of the chambers of commerce expressed an opinion which was either absolutely indifferent or hostile.
Then there is the matter of shipping. Naturally, I daresay, shipping might be expected to be opposed. It is opposed, but the most important consideration is this, that during this long transition period—those years the length of which
my hon. Friend emphasised when he was dealing with the raising and expenditure of money but which he would not emphasise if he dealt with the effect on trade and the interchange of goods during this doubtful interregnum—during all these years there is bound to be stagnation in the present methods of transport across the Channel. New money will not be put into enterprises; docks and harbours in so far as they depend on this traffic will be allowed to fall into disrepair, numbers of men will be unemployed and there will be a steady decay from the present condition, without anything being put in its place, for 12 or 15 years or thereabouts. Even the railways are not so very keen about this project. If there is going to be any substantial increase in traffic, no section of our industry ought to give this project a greater welcome than the railways, but they themselves do not give it a welcome. The most characteristic note of the evidence given by the representatives of the railways is very, very great caution. The White Paper says, and this is an absolutely accurate summary of the position of the Committee:
Nowhere is there to be found any sign of a strong demand for the Tunnel from any of the major industries or interests.
Again I would emphasise that if this tremendous enterprise—tremendous not merely from the financial and engineering points of view, but from the point of view of the whole national economy—is going to be undertaken in the interests of trade and commerce and in the interests of transport, there must be a vim behind the demand which is absolutely absent from the report of the Committee which the House is at present discussing. The question of passenger traffic, I must say, in the light of the issues of this Tunnel, is of a minor interest, but supposing it was a major interest, again you have nothing but contradiction from one town and another, contradiction from one group of travellers and another. There are a great many people who would prefer the Channel to a tunnel. There are a great many people, and I hope still more—a growing number—who would prefer the air to a hole 20 odd miles long dug under the Channel. The passenger traffic will undoubtedly take care of itself, and I have no doubt whatever, after reading the
evidence presented so far as I could, that the passenger traffic would be a debit rather than a credit to the project. That is not at all conclusive, but it is one of the elements that must enter into one's mind when balancing the pros and cons and coming to a conclusion either for a tunnel or against it.
Then there is the other point—my hon. Friend did not stress it—the point about employment. If my hon Friend had made that speech six months ago, he would have stressed that, and so should I, so there is no use in denying that fact. One of the most disturbing revelations made by the investigation into the building of the Tunnel was the very, very small number of men who would find employment in the course of the operations—in the first part, the pilot tunnel, 250 men directly employed, and 750 men indirectly employed, for five years; and the 250 men are specialists, who would require to be taken from skilled labour, for which there is an adequate demand at the present moment. For the building of the next tunnel, 1,550 men directly employed, and 4,500 men indirectly employed, for three years; and in the meantime there is to be a very considerable discharge of men engaged in the industries whose death sentence has been passed on account of the decision to build a Tunnel.
The whole case is one of those that are not proven, to put it at its very highest. It is not proven from the point of view of trade, it is not proven from the point of view of passenger convenience, it is not proven from the point of view of engineering practicability. It remains a project which has got certain attractive general ideas to commend it, but which, the moment one gets down to the actual working details, shows itself to be a very barren one, except in one direction, and that is the change in the political relationships of this country. That, to me, should be enough, and I am perfectly content to leave it there. Under those circumstances, to give a licence for a pilot tunnel—that is, a licence for the whole work—would be a very wrong thing and a most unjustifiable thing for any Government to do.
But I ought to explain that on the military side, the side which I have already said I hold as subordinate, the brief statement in the White Paper must not be taken to indicate, what my hon. Friend did take it to indicate, that the
military have changed their ground. I must say that for them. The considerations of a military character in this White Paper were definitely abbreviated, and were not to be taken as a new argument, but as an additional argument in relation to the situation created by this project of a new tunnel. All the old arguments hold good. They went into it very carefully, and it was the length of time which the military authorities took to complete their survey which embarrassed me once or twice when hon. Members opposite were putting questions to me as to when we were going to announce our decisions upon the Tunnel.
They went very carefully into it. New defensive works would require to be made, and they hold very strongly, rightly or wrongly—it is not for me to say, but it is for me to report—that if we happened unfortunately to find ourselves in another European war, with our nearest neighbour as our ally, the existence of a tunnel, in their view, would in no way be advantageous to us. In their view, the existence of a tunnel would not have been advantageous to us in the last War. In their view, the expedition which was shown in transport at the beginning of the War could not have been improved. If men had to be sent across the Channel by being put into trains, which they had to change at the British end of the Tunnel and change again at the French end, with all the transport, all the limited breadth of passage—instead of being helpful, there are good military authorities who say it would have been absolutely detrimental to our interests. There are other military considerations also, regarding what would have been the objective of the enemy if the British "bridgehead" had been in France. I am completely outside that field of interest, but that view has been considered by the military authorities, and those arguments that have been mentioned are rejected by them and are not accepted by them at all.
One other point. There is a political and a diplomatic aspect of this Tunnel. I am not quite sure if that aspect has been considered by any right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who perhaps have been more into the detailed considerations of this question than I have been able to be, because I only took it up very briefly in
1924, and again the other day when this report came, but I believe that for the first time the political and diplomatic effect of the Tunnel has been considered, and those of us who have been responsible for the conduct of the foreign affairs of this country are agreed that the existence of a Tunnel would not make it easier for us to conduct the diplomatic affairs of this country; and on that ground again it was considered that the present position of this country helped us rather to advance a pacific policy, to strengthen the movement for peace, and was not in any way a hampering position. Upon those considerations, taking all those things into account, the Government penned this final sentence in the White Paper:
Having regard to the element of doubt as to the feasibility of construction, the weakness of the economic case, the great cost, the long period before which the capital expended could fructify, and the small amount of employment provided, the Government have come to the conclusion that there is no justification for a reversal of the policy pursued by successive Governments for nearly 50 years in regard to the Channel Tunnel.
I ask the House, in its vote to-night, to support that decision and allow it to stand.

Sir SAMUEL HOARE: I say at once that I speak for myself, and I understand that some of my right hon. Friends on this bench may not agree with the conclusions at which I have arrived. I well remember, in the weeks before the War, the late Lord Kitchener developing to me two or three times what appeared to him at that period an overwhelming case against the Tunnel. He said to me, "You will see that it will bias our policy in time of peace, and it will dominate our policy in time of war if a tunnel is built." Since then, I have wondered whether recent developments have changed the justice of that view or not. It so happened that during several years in which I was connected with the Air Ministry, that is, with the newest of the fighting arms, I had a good many opportunities of testing the wisdom and the justice of the verdict that Lord Kitchener gave before the War. I should be the last person in this House to deny that the various new weapons that have been introduced in the field of defence during the last 15
or 16 years have not revolutionised the whole system of the defence of these shores.
9.0 p.m.
I have often said that the coming of the aeroplane means that this country has no longer its inviolable isolation. Machines can fly from the Continent to London in a comparatively few minutes. It is for the House to consider this afternoon whether these very serious facts should or should not alter the view that we had previously held about the Tunnel. My own view is, after a close contact with the problem in one of the fighting Departments, that the advent of this new arm has made the project of the Channel Tunnel not less dangerous, but more dangerous and for this reason: In these new arms—the aeroplane, the submarine and the long-range gun—we can certainly not claim a superiority in comparison with our neighbours, but in many respects we are in a distinct inferiority, and that means that an air raid of overwhelming importance, or a submarine attack in the Channel, might very easily destroy all the careful preparations that we had made before the time of crisis for the closing, the opening or the destroying of the Tunnel. I say, therefore, that so far from lessening the danger of the Tunnel, these new arms, particularly aeroplanes, have actually increased it. But I may be wrong; it may be that I exaggerate the danger; but none the less I am quite sure that, whether I be right or wrong, the existence of a Channel Tunnel would create in public opinion in the country a feeling of insecurity at the most critical and awkward moments. In time of peace, the existence of a Channel Tunnel would certainly mean an increased demand for defence expenditure. I am quite certain that the three fighting services would at once demand—and demand with some reason—an increase in expenditure for more units, whether air units or anti-aircraft units, to guard the mouth of the Tunnel, and I am quite sure that the demand would be very difficult to resist. In times of crisis, however, the situation would be far more difficult to deal with. We should at once be faced with the question, "Shall we close the Tunnel, or shall we leave it open?" and faced with it at a moment
when it would be extremely difficult to give it a dispassionate or impartial answer.
Supposing things went further, and we were actually involved in a state of war. We have to take into account even the most remote contingencies, and there again I am certain that the public would be in a continuous state of alarm and uncertainty, and sometimes even of panic, as to whether it was wise to keep the tunnel open, or whether it would be better to destroy it; and if it were decided to destroy it, whether any system of destruction could be final. Several years during the War, I was connected with military intelligence, and I had a good many opportunities of hearing the details of attempts at sabotage and attempts at destroying this or that public work in one or other of the fighting countries; and what impressed itself on my mind always was the complete impossibility of being really certain whether you could actually destroy this or that public work or not. I well remember, for instance, the case of the Roumanian oilfields. We were under the impression that we had totally destroyed those oilfields, at any rate for the duration of the War, yet in the course of quite a few months, the Germans were producing oil from the oilfields again.
I am quite sure that in the case of the Channel Tunnel, there would always be this feeling of insecurity among the public as to whether you could really finally destroy it, or whether some means could not be discovered by the enemy of bringing it into operation again. It is worth noting that Sir John French, who before the War was in favour of a Channel Tunnel, declared at the end of the War, that, if the tunnel had been in existence, we might very well have lost the War in the first year. He took the view that the existence of the tunnel would have drawn the British Expeditionary Force to the defence of the Tunnel; the French armies would have concentrated on Paris, and there would have been a breach between the two armies, and each army would have run the risk of being defeated in turn. Another distinguished Field-Marshal, the late Sir Henry Wilson, took very much the same view. This goes to show that from the point of view of defence the Channel Tunnel would bias our policy in peace time and bias our strategy
in war time. There would be a grave risk of the country existing for the Tunnel and not the Tunnel for the country.
These are very serious considerations, and could only be overridden if a strong case were made against them from the economic standpoint. None of us think that a war is in the least probable, as we hope, for many years to come; none of us wish to contemplate such a terrible event except as the very remotest contingency; and if a really strong economic case for the Tunnel could be made out I would say that it might be worth while overriding these military objections in view of the fact that we contemplate a long period of peace. But the Prime Minister has already shown how very weak is the economic case. There is a very half-hearted report, which from start to finish damns the project with faint praise. Is it going to help unemployment? Scarcely at all. Two or three hundred skilled men, already employed, would be engaged upon it, and there would be the risk of throwing out of employment the men engaged in the operation of the cross-Channel services. Is it going to help trade? There, again, a very weak case is made out by the majority of the Members who sign the report, while Lord Ebbisham, who signs the very interesting minority memorandum, points to the fact that the trades it would mostly help would be the transport of British visitors to the health resorts of the Continent and the transport of early vegetables from the Continent to these shores. In the last day or two the National Farmers' Union have very strenuously taken that view and have put in very strong objections to the project.
I think this project is really a relic of mid-Victorian times. It is out-of-date. It started in the middle of the nineteenth century, but since then the world has moved, and the scheme is now out of keeping with the trend of things. We are asked to spend £20,000,000 or £30,000,000 or £40,000,000, tying up capital in an immobile project, burying it at a great depth under the sea, when, as the Prime Minister said just now, we all hope that in 10 years' time a great many more people will be taking to the air. We are asking the people to burrow under the earth like moles rather than to fly in the air like birds. Because the scheme seems to be dangerous from the
point of view of defence, because it is weakly supported by economic arguments, and because it seems to be entirely antiquated and out-of-date, I agree with the Prime Minister that the case for it is not proven, and if this Motion goes to a Division I shall vote against it.

Mr. MANDER: I never expected to come into this House and hear a speech of high Toryism delivered by a Socialist Prime Minister. It is Toryism which is much too high, I believe, for most of the hon. Members who sit on this side of the House. Among the many unconvincing arguments which the Prime Minister used, the least convincing was his statement that the leaders of the three parties were unanimously agreed that the Tunnel ought not to be built. When we find the leaders of the three parties unanimous, there is good cause for the back benchers to be highly suspicious and to take things into their own hands. The report seems to be one of the most pitiable documents ever issued as a White Paper. Whoever wrote it—I do not know who it was, and I cannot think it was a member of the Government—had a highly-prejudiced mind and was determined, at all costs, to make out a case against the Tunnel. He has looked round in every direction and grasped at every little argument that would in any way tell against the Tunnel. It carries the policy of "Safety First" to such lengths that it is like a man saying, "I am never going out of doors again in case I may catch cold." It is an example of the most lamentable timidity.
The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said that those who were responsible for expressing the diplomatic point of view, and I suppose he meant the Foreign Secretary, were agreed that the Tunnel would not be of any help to us in foreign affairs, in fact, I think he said the tendency would be rather in the other direction. If that be so, we ought to be told by the Foreign Secretary why his hands will be tied, and why things will be made difficult from the international point of view if we have this Tunnel. The French Government, representing our nearest neighbours, are very keen on having the Tunnel built, and if we built it they would regard it as a very happy gesture. It would do nothing but good so far as the French Government are concerned. I hope the Minister
of Transport, or some other Minister, will tell the House what are the real objections from the Foreign Office point of view, and not leave us with the mere ipse dixit of the Prime Minister's statement. Then the Prime Minister said that the cost might be very much greater than the £25,000,000 which had been estimated. It might be very much less if the Fougerolles process of extracting the mud, which would bring it out in the form of a liquid, were adopted. In that case the cost, would not be £25,000,000, but £18,000,000 only, and so there is a great deal to be said for the point of view that the present estimate is too high. The Prime Minister said there was no suggestion that there would be cheaper transport rates as the result of the Tunnel being constructed. Really, that is not the case. One passage in the report states:
On the Channel routes imports largely exceed exports, and this might well prompt the companies operating the tunnel to offer specially attractive rates to exporters, more particularly as they might otherwise have to return trucks empty to the Continent.
That is a definite suggestion of lower rates, cinch as would be of special benefit to the people of this country. Then the Prime Minister referred to the case of investments and used arguments which, if anyone less than the Prime Minister had used them, I should say were absurd and ludicrous. He suggested that because the Government were no longer going to place an embargo on the building of the Tunnel they would be responsible for every penny of finance and for any money that was invested. Let us follow that argument up. To brew beer in this country a man must obtain a licence and the State grants the licence. Has there ever been a suggestion that the Government are going to compensate the brewers or others who brew beer? That shows how ludicrous is the argument. [Interruption.] Dog racing did not require any Government licence. The Cinematograph Films Act was passed in 1927 and as a direct result of that Act, which instituted a quota of British films, a large number of companies were floated and large sums of money were invested, most of which has been lost. Have the Government any responsibility for that? It is perfectly ridiculous to suggest that the Government would have any liability
whatever, particularly as in the beginning they could have it printed an every document that in no circumstances could the promoters have recourse to the Government for assistance. In the White Paper, there is a reference to a phrase used by the late Lord Balfour, who is reported to have said:
So long as the ocean remains our friend, do not let us deliberately destroy its power to help us.
That sentence is quoted in opposition to the Channel Tunnel, but Lord Balfour was a holder of 1,000 shares in the Channel Tunnel scheme of 1882 and 1885. In those circumstances Lord Balfour did not seem to be afraid of building the Tunnel, and, consequently, that argument must go by the board, and Lord Balfour cannot be quoted as anything but a supporter and not an opponent of the Tunnel. For the first time we have a definitely favourable report stating that the building of the Tunnel would be an economic advantage to the people of this country. That is very important, because it is the first time we have had such a report. It is true that, from the military point of view, it is said that they can see no advantage, but we have to inquire whether there are any insurmountable disadvantages. The military experts have made it clear that any military disadvantages can be dealt with by the expenditure of a certain sum of money. It has been suggested that if the scheme is held up because of the extra cost from a military point of view, it may be that those concerned will make themselves responsible for finding the extra money, and if that is the one thing which is holding up this scheme I hope it will not be allowed to continue, because the sum of £125,000 for 10 years would not be beyond the resources of those who are keen and anxious for this tunnel, and who believe that all those objections can be met.
If there is anything in the argument put forward from a military point of view what about the Simplon and other tunnels between Switzerland, Italy and France? You have a magnificent barrier in the Alps which protects various countries around the Alps, and they are able to carry on in spite of the fact that they have these terrible tunnels through the rocks allowing military access from one country to the other. If we had always been influenced by that sort of
argument, there would never have been any Suez Canal or Panama Canal, and the various tunnels I have mentioned would never have been constructed. You cannot make any big change or advance without making some readjustment, or without treading on the toes of people in the immediate area concerned. The introduction of steam, electricity, or anything of that kind is bound to have a tremendous effect on certain people, and the shipping people and other interests are bound to suffer disadvantages, although on the other side advantages are assured.
It is suggested that the Tunnel should not be built because of the introduction of flying, to which, it, is contended, people are more likely to take in the near future. I know that the Prime Minister is prepared to fly on every possible occasion, but there are a great many people who will never fly. The committee considered this question from that point of view, and came definitely to the conclusion that there was never likely to be any competition for cross-Channel work between flying and other means of transport. Consequently, we can put that argument out of our consideration altogether. It is clear to every hon. Member of this House that the time is bound to come when there will be a tunnel under the Channel. Why should we go on holding up and obstructing the inevitable simply because we are saturated with the worst kind of conservatism, which does not allow us to make an advance of any kind until it is forced upon us? The Prime Minister has admitted that if a scheme of this kind were forced upon the Government, and they were driven to it, they would give way. I suggest that now is the time, in view of the changed atmosphere in these post-War days. The League of Nations desires to end war and bring nations together. The countries of the world are being brought closer together by wireless, flying and things of that kind, and I hope the hand of obstruction will not be held up any longer. I trust that the House will remove to-night the embargo which has been placed upon the construction of the Channel Tunnel.

Mr. BROCKWAY: I listened very carefully to the speech of the Prime Minister, because I gathered from the tone of his earlier answers to questions on this matter at the beginning of the
Session that he was inclined to be favourable to this proposal. When the Government announced their decision, I felt that there must be some weighty economic reasons from their point of view. After listening to the speech of the Prime Minister, I am surprised by the weakness of the case which has been put forward from the Treasury Bench, and practically every argument which the right hon. Gentleman has put forward can be effectively controverted. The Prime Minister's first argument was that the nation itself ought not to take the risk of constructing the Channel Tunnel, or to issue a licence for capital to be invested in it, because of the risk that the Tunnel might prove to be impracticable. I do not pretend to be an expert in engineering, but I understand that in all cases of great and new engineering enterprises, there is always a strong element of doubt, and in this particular case all the data tend to show the continuousness of suitable strata for the Tunnel under the Channel. That is the view of Sir John Flett, the senior geologist of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, of Mr. John Pringle, M. Javary, and also of the official French report.
I do not think that the Prime Minister was quite accurate when he suggested that the total cost of the pilot tunnel must necessarily be lost in the unlikely event of the Tunnel proving impracticable. It is almost certain that any flaw in the strata would be discovered long before the total expenditure had been incurred. The Prime Minister urged that we must consider this matter from the point of view of national interests and that will be the manner in which many of us will consider this question in giving our votes to-night. We contend that if the Tunnel is to be built, it should be built by the State and with revenue supplied by the State. I imagine all the supporters of the Channel Tunnel on this side will agree with this statement. It is only because the Government themselves have been adamant in refusing to take that responsibility that we suggest that other methods of building the Tunnel might be attempted. Again, when the Prime Minister answered the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) by arguing that it would be bad to have capital invested from other countries, that again
was only because of the view of the Government that the entire use of British capital would be bad for other aspects of British trade. I very much hope if this Tunnel is built it will be built by the State and under the control of the State. I am convinced that in the long run, on the experience of the Manchester and Liverpool Canal, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, the State will have to assume responsibility for a tunnel of this character, if it is built.
Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to argue that the Tunnel would mean a, change in political relationships. So far as I can follow the argument, that change in political relationships should be welcomed by all those who desire to see peace in the world established on a firmer basis. The position of geographical isolation of this country is not one which we should welcome, but which we should seek to overcome. The greater the contact with other nations, the better for this nation and for the peace of the world. The theory of isolation has been carried to an extraordinary degree if we are to say that an improvement in the method of transport must be resisted because it will have brought Britain nearer to the countries of the Continent. We argue in favour of this Tunnel because we believe it to be an efficient means of transport, a ready and up-to-date means of transport and a development which is in line with all the progress of transport, despite the use of the air in modern times.
Then the Prime Minister went on to argue that there is an absence of enthusiasm among the commercial community and railway interests in favour of this scheme. In adopting that argument I agree with the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander). He was proving himself a Conservative among Conservatives, because the only argument that can be asserted in its favour is upon a most extreme Conservative basis. The fear of the commercial interests is a fear of the imports from the Continent, but already the Channel trade is largely a trade of imports. The imports exceed the exports very largely, and the probable effect of a Channel Tunnel would be that the decreased freightage which would be likely to occur, because of the need to
send back the trucks to the Continent, would mean an absolute encouragement to the exports of this country. The two trades of this country which export most to the Continent are, I believe, those of cotton and wool. A railway system linking up Lancashire and Yorkshire with the mouth of the Tunnel upon this side would be a tremendous impetus towards the extension of the sorely-hit trades of Lancashire and Yorkshire as far as these goods are concerned. Secondly, we are surely carrying protection to an extraordinary point when we say we are not to extend transport facilities with other countries because of the fear of the competition of their goods. I do not adopt the Free Trade view of the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton. I take the view quite definitely that laissez faire in foreign trade is a survival of the last century. I do not accept that view, but I believe that if you could accept a system of import boards for the various industries, that would be an infinitely better method of preventing unfair undercutting in this country than to say we are not going to have the Channel Tunnel because of the competition of foreign goods.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Dunnico): The hon. Member must not discuss the respective merits of alternative fiscal policies.

Mr. BROCKWAY: Referring to the argument of the Prime Minister that the scheme would contribute very little towards the provision of employment, it would probably provide employment for 1,000 people in the first five years and for 6,000 people during the subsequent three years. When it is argued that road schemes would provide more employment, I suggest that the Channel Tunnel will not be effective unless it is extended in this country by road and railway development. If you have a Channel Tunnel and then a great national road scheme linking up that tunnel with tie centres of industry in this country, the total number of unemployed who might be provided with work by such a scheme is very considerable, and would be a definite contribution towards meeting the condition of unemployment which we have now. More than that, the extended trade which would almost certainly follow is another great argument in a similar direction.
Finally, I want to turn my attention to the argument which the Prime Minister developed to some extent, and which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) developed to a greater extent, regarding the military case against the Tunnel—the fear of the Tunnel in the event of war. I would remind the right hon. Member for Chelsea that the Duke of Wellington considered the first railway between Portsmouth and London as a military menace. I suggest that we cannot possibly accept military fears of that character as an argument against the development of means of transport. Whatever might be the effect of the Tunnel in time of war, we would welcome the Tunnel because we believe it would be one contribution towards the prevention of war. It would mean closer contact between our people and Europe. A large number of our people are going to Europe for their holidays and that number would be extended. Not only are our people going to Europe, but, increasingly, European people are coming to this country, and it, would be possible with a tunnel so to advertise the attractions of this country that these visits from the Continent might be more greatly extended. When one adds to that the possibilities of the development of trade, we regard the building of the Tunnel as quite definitely a contribution to the prevention of war. Thus the issue really is whether the military mind or the mind of civilisation is to decide the future development of this country. The military mind, full of the fears of war, would not merely obstruct the Channel Tunnel which makes access from one country to another easier, but would set up barriers and obstructions of every kind to intercourse between the nations. We urge that that type of mind must be put behind us and we must look at this problem from the civilised point of view. Regarding it in that light, we welcome the proposal of a Channel Tunnel and hope that the majority of this House will vote in its favour.

Colonel ASHLEY: The only one argument I have ever heard in favour of the Tunnel is that no one wants to be seasick. If you eliminate that very natural feeling among hon. Members and the population generally, I think you will find certainly that there is no enthusiasm for the construction of the Tunnel and scarcely any support. Naturally all of us
would much prefer not to be seasick and not to have the disagreeable inconvenience of transhipment from railway to boat, and boat to railway. With all respect to those who have spoken in favour of the project this evening, they have given no concrete reasons why it should be put through. They have talked of brotherly love, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) talked about fiscal matters, but of real, hard, bedrock facts we have heard nothing at all. Taking the military side, I ask the House what is the use of paying military experts, air experts, and naval experts huge sums of money—[Interruption.]—perhaps hon. Members will allow me to finish my sentence—unless you take their advice, or get rid of them and get others in their place? I suppose it would not be suggested that the House of Commons should decide the particular form of a battleship; obviously that must be left to the naval experts; and I submit that, as far as the Channel Tunnel is concerned, we should be very foolish to incur the extra expense—for that is what it means—of £5,000,000 for the necessary defence works, and not take the advice of the military people.
It is said that it would help good feeling between this country and France, but there may be circumstances in which it would have a distinctly harmful effect. Suppose that there were strained relations between this country and France. The man who had to decide whether the button should be pressed would be in a very difficult position indeed. The position might be critical. If he pressed the button, and the Tunnel were destroyed, obviously, in my opinion, that would mean war, because the French would say, quite rightly, that we did not trust them, and that would be the signal for the outbreak of hostilities. If, on the other hand, he refrained too long, all the defences would be in vain, and this country would have been landed into great danger.
To turn to another aspect, take the question of unemployment. At the beginning of the discussions, a year or two ago, this was going to solve the problem of unemployment. [Interruption.] It was said in the Press. What is the concrete fact? I will not weary the House by going into the whole details,
but the amount of money that would be spent on a Channel Tunnel would give less than half the employment that the same amount of money would give if it were spent on roads. Are we going in for a thing which is very problematical from the military point of view, and very doubtful from the trade point of view, when, if we spent the same amount of money on roads, we should give more than twice the amount of employment to those who are out of work? [Interruption.] Hon. Members must look at this question from a national point of view, and not from the purely local point of view. I wonder how many hon. Members here who support the project would put £100 into it? That, after all, is the great test of whether you really support a thing or not. If you think a horse is going to win, are you going to back it? Will hon. Members put their money into it? I see not the slightest chance of anyone who puts money into it, unless they go in in order to get out at a profit, getting any return.

Mr. LEIF JONES: Is not the real question whether we are not preventing other people from putting their money into it? That is what is bothering me.

Colonel ASHLEY: What is bothering me is that my right hon. Friend might be induced to put his own money into it, in consequence of his youthful enthusiasm. Seriously, a capital expenditure of anything from £40,000,000 to £42,000,000, with an annual cost of between £500,000 and £1,000,000, surely can hardly ever be justified by the traffic. Let the new air services be remembered. I speak with great diffidence in the presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare), but I expect he would not contradict me when I say that, within the next 10, 15, or 20 years, we shall see an enormous increase in the number of passengers carried from this country to Paris, and further, by air; and all those passengers will be carried at the expense of the Channel Tunnel if it is built. The Channel Tunnel will not come into existence for another 10 or 12 years at the very earliest, and by then the full competition of the air services will be felt.
Then, would anyone tell me that, if you increase the facilities and comforts
for passengers going abroad from this country, you will not tempt British holiday makers to go abroad and spend their holidays instead of spending them in Hastings, Bournemouth, Brighton or other seaside resorts in this country? Of course you will, and, after all, rightly or wrongly, we do not have casinos in this country, and, rightly or wrongly, we have very strict licensing laws, while the amenities of holiday making abroad are as a general rule very much superior to the amenities of holiday making at home. Anyhow, in my opinion, for every American who comes into this country you will lose two Britishers.
It is really, however, the question of trade that bothers me most. I think it was the hon. Member for East Leyton (Mr. Brockway) who said, and with great truth, that for every three tons of foreign goods coming in from the Continent by the Dover and Folkestone routes, only one ton of British goods goes out. That is nearly all luxury trade. If the contention of the supporters of this Motion be true, that the construction of the Tunnel will increase the facilities for goods traffic, it simply means that more luxury goods will come into this country at the expense of luxury providers in this country, and we shall be sending out of this country more money for luxuries than we are at present. I take it that the House would not approve of that. We want to keep as much money as we can in this country, and, if it is to be spent abroad, to spend it, not on luxuries, but on raw materials for our industries. It is no doubt the farmers who will be hit the hardest, and they are very much upset at the idea. They find it hard enough at present to compete with grapes, tomatoes, and other things sent into this country by foreign growers, but if we are going to have, as some hon. Members want, State-subsidised traffic to cut them out in their own markets, they will not thank us for proposing that. Undoubtedly, whatever hon. Members may think, there in no enthusiasm for this project in the trade, industry and commerce of this country. They are waiting for a lead. But a very significant resolution was passed two or three days ago by the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. After making certain comments, it concluded thus:
So long as British manufacturers are largely precluded from Continental trade by the imposition of high tariffs, any additional facilities, where effective, are more likely to assist the foreign trader.
That means that a Channel Tunnel would undoubtedly assist the foreign trader in his competition with our own people in this country, and for that reason I shall oppose the Motion.

Mr. NOEL BAKER: I think it has been proved by the debate, as I think it was proved by the Blue Book prepared by the Commission set up by the late Government, that the economic case for this proposal is overwhelming. I do not desire to cite the terms of paragraph 136 of that report, but I commend it to hon. Members who are in doubt. It is equally clear to my intelligence that the engineering case in favour of this plan is stronger than the engineering case in favour of almost any other considerable public work of the kind that has ever been proposed. It is clear to me, from personal experience in many parts of Europe over a considerable period of years, that if the Tunnel were built, it would have the effect of bringing far more people to this country than it took Englishmen abroad, for the admirable reason, which no one will dispute, that foreigners are more afraid of the sea than we are. For these reasons, I desire to address myself solely to one aspect of the matter. If the documents on this subject are read with care, it appears that the only significant argument that is adduced is the military argument. I have studied them with the utmost care, and I am forced with an impartial mind to that conclusion. There are certain considerations which ought to dominate our policy which are different from the considerations that were relevant to that policy half a century ago, and which suggest that what was right then would be a mistake at present.
Let us consider what is the military risk involved. The military risk, which has been stressed by the Prime Minister, who says the old military arguments hold good, and which has been stressed from the Front Opposition bench, is that we shall not be able to defend a hole in the ground 18 feet across, that in time of profound peace a dastardly attack will be made by our neighbour, France, to whom we are bound by ties of interest and
friendship, by common membership of the League of Nations and by trade obligations of many kinds, that in time of profound peace France will be able to arrange a plan by which she will seize the near end of the Channel and will be able to transport through it, before we can do anything, a large army, and that all the means of destruction and defence which we are able to devise will fail in the moment of crisis. In the first place, military opinion has never been united. As long ago as 1882 the Government set up a military Commission to study the matter. It reported that there were various means of defence that might be taken. A portcullis might be made. The Tunnel might be filled with poison gas. The land portion of it might be mined. The sea portion of it might be fitted with sluices for temporary flooding. There might be other sluices for permanent flooding. We can have the control of these devices by electrical machinery from a distant point. When the Commission reported, the Adjutant-General of the day was not satisfied that this means of defence would be adequate to safeguard the national security, but the Surveyor-General of Ordnance, another eminent military authority, was so satisfied that he used these words:
Nothing was more obvious than the facility with which the Tunnel could be denied to an enemy by means which no vigilance on his part could prevent or remove.
Moved by such considerations, Mr. Gladstone on one side, and Lord Salisbury on the other, were both in favour of the Tunnel, believing that no military risk was involved. From a, purely technical military point of view the means of defence have enormously improved. The technique of electrical control, the technique of explosives, the technique of experience of mining, the technique of poison gas has been enormously improved and I cannot resist the conclusion that, whatever the experts may say, to the ordinary man who looks at this from the detached point of view of the average citizen the military risk in this 18 foot hole is negligibly small. When the right hon. Gentleman objects from the Front Opposition Bench that we should at the moment of crisis be embarrassed in our relations with France, and that we should have to decide whether or not we should blow the Tunnel up and, if we did it, that
would create a position of intolerable strain, it would be very easy for us, not to blow up the Tunnel but to drop a steel portcullis and we should be as safe as if no tunnel had ever been built.
On the other hand, against this risk, which I think is not very great, there is surely a counterbalancing consideration. It is the diminution of the danger that blockade would mean. That is incomparably the greatest military danger which this country has to face. We are dependent on our communications with the outer world as no nation in history has ever been dependent before. We are dependent for food. We have only six weeks' supply. Lord Jellicoe has told us how impossible our position is if our sea routes are closed. Nothing we can do can prolong that period of six weeks. We are dependent for raw material on our general trade, and for the making of munitions. We should be paralysed in our economic life, and in the field of battle, if our sources of raw material were cut off. Above all, we are dependent upon foreign supplies for the motive power of war. How is war conducted? Our Army, Navy and Air Force are dependent on oil, and the oil must come from abroad. We very nearly failed to keep our communications open in 1917. In the month of April in that year, when the Germans launched their submarine assault, in a single fortnight 122 vessels were sunk, and 25 per cent. of the vessels that left our ports were sunk before they returned home. I know that was before the convoy system and that ultimately the convoy system defeated the submarine method, but at that time we had absolute mastery of the surface of the sea. Submarines could not attack without coming to the surface. In any future war the conditions are going to be very different. In any future serious war of the kind contemplated in the hypotheses upon which this proposal is rejected, we cannot, as we could in 1917, count upon the absolute mastery of the surface of the sea. We know now that listening devices have so improved that, instead of working against the submarine, they work in its favour, and that submarines can now attack without coming to the surface at all. General Rose, who was the chief of the Air Staff in 1918, has said that the air menace to our merchant-men in the
narrow seas is very great. We know that there is also a grave menace from air attacks against our ports. Surely it is the path of wisdom to see if we cannot find some other means than sea routes by which we can bring supplies to our shores. When Marshal Foch said, as he did in 1922, that if the Tunnel had been made it would have shortened the duration of the War by half its length, that is a lesson for us now, and, if anything is plain, it is that, if we have another war, I believe it might well occur that it will be a priceless advantage to us to have real communication with the Mediterranean ports or other parts of Europe, and it is a challenge to common sense that the making of the Tunnel would not diminish the risk of our defeat by blockade, which is the gravest of all the risks that we have to face.
Let us neglect that advantage and look simply at the risk which opponents of the proposal see. Let us compare it with other similar works which have been carried out in Europe. Europe is a net work of international railways and of international tunnels. The arguments which have been used against the Channel Tunnel would be decisive against every international railway or tunnel on the Continent. The hon. Member who spoke from below the Gangway stated the opinion of the Duke of Wellington. Surely, if the general staff of European nations had accepted those arguments, which seem decisive to our Front Benches to-night, there would be, in every country in Europe, a different railway gauge. One nation did accept such advice. It was Spain. Spain has a different gauge, and the Spanish people have regretted it bitterly ever since. Thank God in our own interests, and in the interests of the Continent as a whole, these arguments are not accepted! It is plain that an international railway does increase the risk of invasion if you are talking in those terms, and still more so an international tunnel.
Let us look for a moment at the action of Switzerland about two generations ago. Switzerland had in her Alps a protection far greater than that which the Channel gives to us. The technical means of destruction at her disposal were far less. The danger of aggressive use against her was far greater. She had to take a decision in 19th century condi-
tions, when there was no League of Nations and no Kellogg Pact for the renunciation of international war. What would we have said if the Swiss people had turned down those schemes? What would it have meant to the prosperity of Europe and to the civilisation of the West if they had taken such a decision? Fortunately, they did not, and we say on our side that what Switzerland could do in the 19th century in conditions of international antagonism we can do to-day.
If we reject this proposal on military grounds—and if we reject it, I submit that it will be on these grounds—I can foresee two political results of the most unhappy kind. The first is the prevention of the expansion of international intercourse, of which much mention has been made to-night, by which general progress and general prosperity have in the past been attained, and by which it may still be attained in the future. I will read the concluding words of paragraph 136 in the Blue Book, which says:
Taken together, these improvements have during the last 80 years revolutionised all forms of communication, and the period as a whole was characterised, not by losses due to their introduction, but rather by general economic progress unequalled in previous experience.
In the second place—and to my mind it is much the most serious consideration in the whole matter—whether we like it or not, if we rule out this plan on military grounds, we shall be striking a very serious blow at the international confidence and trust which we are now striving laboriously to create. This assumption of an attack in times of peace by France is a dangerous one to make. If we are going to say that, in spite of the League of Nations, in spite of the Kellogg Pact, in spite of the Locarno Treaty and the Optional Clause and the General Act and all the rest, we are still expecting such an attack by France, and that we think it so likely that we cannot take this very small risk which is involved by this hole in the ground; if we cannot do what the Swiss did two generations ago at far greater risk to themselves, the world will come to the conclusion that we are still hag-ridden by the war psychology of the past. We shall probably find that our declarations against war will fail of their purpose.
It is in the general confidence that the great nations mean to observe treaties
against war and expect their neighbours to observe them, that the real barrier against war is to be found. If our confidence cannot stand this test, if we once undermine that confidence, we may be certain that not much of our structure of peace will long remain. If we cannot stand this test the other nations will judge us by that fact. We shall very gravely diminish the powers of our nation to give us the means for peace, and I fear that this tiny hole in the ground, grown monstrous in our hypnotised imagination, may well prive to be symbolical of the grave of all our hopes of peace.

10.0 p.m.

Major HILLS: I am not a military expert, and I propose to deal with the military side of this scheme very shortly. I do not know, and I cannot assess the military advantages or disadvantages of the Channel Tunnel. The military question has to be weighed carefully, and I believe it has been weighed very carefully by the Prime Minister. I want to ask a question of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Coventry (Mr. Noel Baker). Assume the case of the Tunnel being built, and assume the other end of the Tunnel being in the possession of a country, both powerful and hostile, would there not arise in this country a, great feeling of unsettlement, and would not that lead inevitably to three things—increased expenditure, increased armaments and embittered relations? It is all very well for hon. Members to express sincere words of peace, as did the hon. Member for East Leyton (Mr. Brockway) and the hon. Member for Coventry, and to talk as though the case for peace is all on one side. I shall try to prove that it is not. So much for the military arguments. I would only say that there would in this country be grave disquiet in this House if the conditions I have outlined existed.
But I am told that war is now remote, and has been pushed so far away that we need not bother about it, and that the Tunnel will add to the security of peace. I wonder if that is so. A tunnel may add to the safety of communications but I have never found that the obstacles to peace are time and space. A far greater obstacle than time and space is language, and the great obstacle to European peace, in my judgment, is the absence of a common language. I am sure that many hon. Members of this House have been
in the same position as I have been in at international conferences and realised that the very great difficulty of exchanging one's opinion with a member of a foreign race is that one may speak his language too badly to give full expression to one's views. I do not believe that obliterating time and space will increase the peace of the world. I see no signs of it, and I do not believe that it will do so in the future.
The third point, after the military point and the point of peace, is the point of commerce. When the Tunnel is built, our commercial future as far as Channel trade is concerned must be in the hands of France. We put much bigger stakes on the table than France does. If the Tunnel is to be a success, and I assume for the purposes of argument that it can be built and be made a success, it will carry from this country far more than our trade with France. It will carry our trade with Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Therefore, the Tunnel will carry a large part of our European trade. France will be concerned only with French trade with us. Supposing that France proposes a discrimination in favour of French trade, to interfere with the trade that we want to carry on with different parts of Europe, or she says that unless we enter into some one-sided bargain, she will restrict our trade. The French are very good friends of ours, and I have great respect for them—I have many friends in France—but I have never known the French to be backward in commercial bargains. In a commercial bargain they usually try to get all the advantage on their side.
We have been told that we can sign a commercial treaty with France. No doubt a convention could be signed, but what is the weapon against breach? You can denounce a convention, but you cannot denounce a convention with a solid tunnel there, going on to French soil for all time. You cannot or you would not blow it up. You cannot shift it to Belgium. It is there, fixed, and the French know that it is fixed. The trade that we have to send to the Continent in so far as we use the Tunnel must go through that Tunnel. Therefore, we put up far greater stakes than France, and
we are liable to be held up at any time. Does the hon. Member for Coventry want to put the commercial future of this country entirely in the hands of France? Has he not any sort of doubt in regard to that matter? How would he prevent discrimination, which could only be obviated by abolishing the Tunnel or by——

Mr. NOEL BAKER: My reply to that question is, that France and ourselves are parties to an international convention which was made at the Conference at Barcelona in 1921. Under that Convention the traffic would be regulated in accordance with the general principles which they and we have accepted, and which would prevent discrimination against us.

Major HILLS: That will not do. You can have a convention and you can have as many written words as you like, but no written words can change the fact that the Tunnel is there for all time. We shall be, in this island, married to France, and from that marriage there will be no divorce. I am met with the question, how can I justify making a tunnel through the Alps. With all respect, the two things are not in the least parallel. Switzerland has frontiers with Italy, Bavaria and France. She cannot be held up. Switzerland does not put her trade into the power of any one country. She can send her trade all around her by these different tunnels. She is not in the position that we should be in. So far as our Tunnel trade is concerned, we should be entirely in the hands of France. Surely, hon. Members must see that a canal is a different matter. It joins two oceans, which are free to all, but by means of the Tunnel we shall be joining one country to another, fixedly. I believe that there are certain advantages in being an island, and certain advantages in being continental, but I can see no advantage in being an island and in being fixed to one country on the Continent by a tunnel, and that a country which has been always rather grasping in commercial bargains.
It is not as if the Channel Tunnel was the only means of getting through trade. A far better means than a tunnel for through trade is a train ferry. Train ferries can be directed to any country within reason, and if we were held up commercially by one country very small
expense would be involved in shifting the terminus of the train ferry to some other country. By that means we should get through transport of goods far cheaper and just as effectively as by a tunnel.
I have been deluged, and I suppose other hon. Members have been deluged, by a series of cartoons depicting in a humorous way the state of mind of those who are opposed to the Tunnel. I will not go into the justice or injustice of that matter. I am quite content to be called all the names that people like to call me, but when I see certain propaganda either for or against a measure I suspect some commercial interest. I cannot believe that all that expense is incurred from patriotic motives. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Nottingham lace?"j I do not wear Nottingham lace, I am concerned about the Channel Tunnel. I see signs of a big campaign to persuade us to vote in a certain way, and I am not sure that that campaign is disinterested. I am certain that no Meanber of this House has any part or lot in this business, but I am sure that there are people in this country whose interest it is that the House should vote in a certain direction. The House must be very careful before it does that.
My answer to those who send me post cards to prove that I have a Victorian mind, is to say that they are not moving with the times. All through history the faster transport has beaten the slower. Whatever its expense and whatever its danger, the quicker vessel always has ousted the slower. The air will oust the railway. If you want to build a Channel Tunnel, I say that you are 20 or 30 years too late. Many hon. Members have no doubt crossed the Channel by air and looked down from a height of some 6,000 feet on that little strip of water which under a grey sky looks almost like a strip of dirty drugget. Will they suggest that we should spend some £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 in burrowing under it? How foolish we shall look in 10 years' time!
Hon. Members opposite pretend to be in the van of progress and amity, and democracy, as the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) said. Democracy sometimes has sorry champions. The project will do nothing to increase amity; it will only lead to a great deal of
friction and difficulty. Neither will it assist our trade in the least. I have not dealt with particular trades or with the position of our South Coast towns, who would find their clientele attracted away. [HON. MEMBERS: "No !"] Oh yes they would; to French towns which are cheaper, and shall I say less restricted or shall I say more wicked? On the broad and larger issues of trade we should be always bargaining at a disadvantage with France, and in the end we should get the worst of it. Lastly, we shall look very foolish if we spend all this money and at the end of 10 years, when air transport is more efficient and has a far greater performance, we find the trains of the Channel Tunnel running empty while overhead the air lines, free to all, are used for carrying both passengers and goods.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: I have listened with considerable interest to this debate because I have the honour to represent a constituency which is affected more than any other constituency, in two ways. I have more concentrated holiday resorts within the square miles of the proposed Tunnel than any locality in England. The right hon. and gallant Member for Christchurch (Colonel Ashley) made a most amazing statement and one which I think after due reflection he will regret. He said that the holiday resorts of France were in every way more attractive than those in this country. That is a form of mental snobbery which is very hard to conceive. The right hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) spoke of those who supported the Channel Tunnel as having in their minds the relics of Victorianism, but I have never beard anything to equal the relics of Edwardianism as the speech of the right hon. and gallant Member for Christchurch.
When I approached the consideration of this Channel Tunnel very seriously, I was at first prejudiced against it. When I started my study of the subject I dealt with two assumptions, the assumption of finance and the assumption of feasibility. On the assumption of finance I agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton East (Mr. Mander), that in giving a licence the Government do not take any responsibility. When they give a licence for the consumption of liquid refreshments they do not take any responsi-
bility. They give a licence, and it is then for the public to consider whether or not they will accept or reject the proposition put before them. With regard to feasibility, that has had doubts cast upon it to-day and in the propaganda which has been going on against this project. I would only recommend any hon. Member who has doubts of the feasibility to read the life of Lord Cowdray by Mr. Spender. He would find the most wonderful lesson of how a man triumphed over every difficulty. He will learn something of the spirit which led Lord Cowdray to design a tunnel under the Hudson River to New Jersey, where, if you drive at under 35 miles an hour the police stop and fine you. I can only recommend doubters to study those lessons of the past, and perhaps those who are faint-hearted will then get courage.
Having dealt with those two assumptions, feasibility and finance, I want to turn to two other aspects of the proposition. The first is defence, and the second is the economic aspect. As regards defence I was amazed to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelsea, under whom I had the honour of serving, quoting those who have been the heads of what I consider to be, as an exponent of the air, the vested interests of the older services. Were I an opponent of the proposition about which the right hon. Gentleman was speaking, I should rather have cited those whom I had learned to work with and support, than those whom I regard almost as my natural enemies. I submit that it is not a question of the defence of the Channel, but a question of how the Channel could be blocked in case of war by the quickest possible means with the least possible damage. It is not a question of defence, because I could guarantee that with a sufficient number of night bombing squadrons, quite independent and fearless and interceptor fighters, you could certainly destroy either channel end of the Tunnel if you desired.
Air offence is the deciding factor in the destruction of the Channel Tunnel. The problem is not defence but destruction. The proposition has been put forward that the Tunnel might be divided roughly into sections A, B and C, and that you
should either blow up section B, leaving A and C alone, or block Section B, which is probably the more feasible. The right hon. Gentleman said it was a Cheerful prospect. It is very much better that one should face the possible issues than deal with them in a sentimental elysium. The destruction of the Tunnel need not prevent us going forward with the project. If it is a danger in war equally it is an ally in peace, and equally it is an ally in the case of war should France chance to be co-operating with us in such an event. I consider that we have already lost our naval supremacy, and therefore the Channel Tunnel cannot do us any harm as regards the defence of the Channel, because the air is the deciding factor. The air will govern in the next war, and really the Navy is already obsolete.
As regards the economic side of this issue, we ought to ask ourselves this question. Do we win or lose from the economic aspect? I submit that both as regards tourist traffic, and trade generally, we should win. One might imagine from the speeches which we have heard to-night that nobody had ever crossed the Channel before. The problem has been approached as if the passenger boats were not carrying people every day, but if people want to cross the Channel they will do so even at the present time. I admit that there is the deterrent of mal de mer The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon spoke of the absence of a common language but there is one common language when crossing the Channel, irrespective of nationality. As I say, however, people will cross the Channel if they want to, and the proposition is that we should make it more possible and easier for people to do so. In my constituency we get thousands and thousands of holiday makers from all parts of England. I went to some trouble to study the pros and cons of this question, in conjunction with people in my constituency, and the argument that there are 450,000,000 inhabitants in Northern Europe compared with 45,000,000 in this country, a proportion of 10 to 1, was the argument which finally carried weight with those who had previously been against this project.
I turn again to the point on which I have touched already, namely the assumption that our holiday resorts are not as good as and better than those on
the other side of the Channel. People take their pleasures in different ways and have different tastes, but I submit that in spite of laws and restrictions which we would like to see cancelled or eased at certain times, there is no better holiday than the holiday, not at the Casino, but the quiet, peaceful, happy holiday at Margate. Perhaps to complete the education of the right hon. Gentleman, after he Las been to Margate, he could go on to Broadstairs and Ramsgate and then to Westgate and Birchington, and, possibly, his education will then have been completed away from his own Division which probably is rather narrow in its outlook. Those who are the backbone of trade in my Division feel that they will not lose by the existence of a Channel Tunnel, because those who desire a quiet holiday, without the complications of the language difficulty, will be able still to come to our English resorts, whereas a certain number of the 450,000,000 from Northern Europe will undoubtedly come to England to find some peace from the distractions of the Casino and the café.
The British nation is under a great obligation to the seaside resorts of England and if there is one slogan which I would have in industry to-day, it is that better health means better work, and the worst possible form of false economy would be to cut down the holidays of the industrial workers of this country. As regards trade, generally, I support the proposition of a Channel Tunnel. I am convinced that given certain factors it would do no harm to trade or to the agricultural industry of this country. We have heard a great deal about early vegetables, but I submit that this would be the first and the best opportunity of introducing what hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite desire to see, namely, prohibition of imports, so that the producer of vegetables in this country should not be penalised by the difference in climate between this country and European countries. I submit also, as regards trade, that if the project is coupled with a strong policy of safeguarding the British worker, against the unfair competition of foreign goods, no harm would come from a Channel Tunnel and the freer trade it would bring. We have heard of the Victorian mentality, but I say that the prejudices
and pruderies of the 19th century should not let the ostrich mentality continue in this House any longer.

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): We have had a very interesting debate on a matter of considerable importance, and I propose, in the time that remains, to summarise the case for the Government. It was inevitable that many hon. Members, in supporting the proposal for a Channel Tunnel, should concentrate upon the military and diplomatic aspects of the matter. It will be remembered by the House that the Prime Minister did not rest his case primarily upon military, political, or diplomatic considerations. He rested his case primarily upon the economic, business, and financial aspects concerned. He certainly indicated that there were strong military problems which faced anybody who had to come to a decision upon this matter.
It is not for me to deal with the military aspect—I am not competent to do so; it is not my Department, and it is not in my line—but it is perfectly clear that hon. Members arguing the military case in opposition to the view that the Government are taking are in a much more advantageous and free position to state their views than the Government possibly can be in stating their arguments on the other side. Therefore, I would ask the House, in assessing the balance of arguments upon that aspect, to take into account that it is clear that Ministers cannot argue across the Floor details of matters which must inevitably remain secret in character and which involve relationships with other States. I only ask that in assessing that aspect of the matter, with which I do not deal, the House should recognise the fact that the pro-Tunnel people must be in an argumentative advantage on that point so far as freedom of debate and discussion is concerned.
I would like to suggest to my hon. Friends that there is just a little danger of some of them thinking that, because the soldiers are apprehensive about the proposal, that is a conclusive argument as to why we should support it, and I submit that that would be misleading and unwise as a conclusion. Another argument has been used, that the Government are taking, not in a
political sense, but in a literal sense, a conservative attitude. I do not agree at all. A question of this sort must be settled as a matter of fact; it must be argued as a matter of fact. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] As one who has listened throughout to this debate, I venture to say that the great bulk of what has been said in support of this project has not been based upon fact, but has been based upon generalisations and upon, I will not say sentimentality, but somewhat idealistic considerations; and if there was ever a proposition which should be settled as a business proposition, it is this proposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] When I have given hon. Members who support this proposal business, economic, and transport arguments on it which they have not faced, I hope they will cheer me as loudly at the end as they are cheering me at the present moment.
If it is wrong to appear to be conservative upon a matter, may I say that there is nobody more conservative than the man who says, "Because this is a new thing and has not been done before, I am going to support it"? No more inverse Toryism and Conservatism could be found that that particular argument. I only say that it is somewhat being assumed, and we must beware, in rejecting the Conservatism in ourselves, against becoming guilty of rule-of-thumb reasoning by assuming that, because the proposal is to do something that we have not done before, it must be right. I come back to the point that we have to settle this as a matter of fact, of economic fact and of transport fact, and I appeal as a Socialist to my hon. Friends to revive their Socialist economics, and to judge this on the basis of Socialist economics, and not be led too far by Sir William Bull, the late Conservative Member for South Hammersmith. Let us therefore eliminate these points of Conservatism and anti-Conservatism, and let us get at the facts.

Mr. JAMES GARDNER: May I ask my hon. Friend how we are to come to a conclusion upon these facts when in his opening remarks he hinted that there were facts that could not be disclosed?

Mr. MORRISON: That is a totally irrelevant interruption. I am not now dealing
with the military aspect; I am now arguing the economic and business points of view. [Interruption.] I have listened to the speeches without interruption, and we need not turn this debate into the atmosphere of a street-corner meeting. It was urged by my hon. Friend the Member for East Leyton (Mr. Brockway) that the Channel Tunnel would bring a ray of hope to Lancashire and Yorkshire, but really that is absurd. The export trade of Lancashire and Yorkshire does not come through London to the Channel; it does not go the longest way, but gets to the sea as quickly as it can, and goes by boat. I want to recall to the House that even though at this point State capital and State money may not be involved, those of us who take the Socialist view of the problem cannot say that because private capital to the extent of £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 is to be invested in the project, it is a matter of indifference to us whether that capital is profitably or unprofitably invested. I do not take the Tory view upon this matter, but the Socialist view that the investment of large masses of capital on a large economic project of this sort, whether that capital be State or private capital, is a matter of real interest to the masses of people and to the State as a whole. I beg my hon. Friends not to take the view that, because at this stage it is not State capital, it does not matter whether the money is lost or saved. It does matter whether the capital resources of the country, private or public, are invested in useful works or on works which are not useful. Again, therefore, I would stress the point that we have to make up our minds whether this will be advantageous or not. The Motion assumes that the Tunnel should be a private undertaking. It is a private enterprise Motion. My own feeling is that if and when the Tunnel is constructed it ought to be constructed by the State, or by this State in association with another State. In an adventure of this sort it would not be wise to leave it entirely to private capital or, indeed, to leave it to private capital at all.
Let us go through the economic arguments which can be adduced. There is, first, the argument about employment. I quite agree that my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) did not stress this argument. He agreed that it
was not a material factor in his opinion. It has been argued, however, that the Tunnel would stimulate employment by finding work on the Tunnel itself. The report, a favourable report, clearly shows that, so far as employment is concerned, there is very little in the scheme; and against that we have to put the possible displacement of workpeople employed on passenger services on the short sea routes, the limitation of, if not the very great injury to, the interests of Dover harbour and Folkestone harbour, in which labour is involved, and the decreasing employment amongst seafarers employed upon these services. So far as employment is concerned I suggest that there is nothing at all in the argument. I should think on balance there would not be so much employment. I do not say that that argument condemns the scheme. It is one of the possible processes of rationalisation.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Hear, hear !

Mr. MORRISON: That is all right, as long as my hon. Friend will be consistent about rationalisation. People argue on one side of the fence one day and on the other side the next. The probability is that in the long run there would be a decrease of employment, so far as transport is concerned, rather than an increase.
The next question is, How will it affect British trade? We are not dealing with the total export trade of Great Britain, but with a limited amount of trade which is concentrated on the ports of Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven and perhaps Harwich, and in this particular avenue of trade, so far as transport is concerned, the case is against and not for. In 1927 the imports at Dover, Folkestone and Newhaven were valued at £32,683,000, British exports amounted to £9,108,000, and the re-exports to £7,380,000; so that there is a very great preponderance of imports as against exports. The question arises, Would the construction of the Tunnel alter that balance of trade? I say all the evidence goes to show that it would not alter it, but, if anything, increase the possibility of perishable goods coming to this country with greater ease in competition with our own products. I do not press this point beyond that, but I do say that it cannot be argued that the construction of the Tunnel is a direct and clear advantage to British trade.
So far as the passenger services are concerned, the tendency for passengers to visit Continental countries on holiday inclines to increase. In many ways we are glad that that should be so. The continental visitors to this country appears to be stationary, although in some years there has been a decrease. [Interruption.] It may be desirable that our people should go to the Continent for their holidays. I am not arguing whether people ought to go abroad or come to England, but I am arguing that, whether it is an economic advantage or a disadvantage, the movement of passenger traffic does not afford a tittle of evidence in favour of the Channel Tunnel.
I am giving the House the facts, and you do not upset facts by ignoring them. We must remember that, in so far as the Tunnel traffic develops, the seaborne traffic would be affected to that extent. It has been said that the Prime Minister was wrong when he stated that there was no question of the State incurring any liability. I will deal with that question, but it is really beside the point for the hon. Member for Wolverhampton East (Mr. Mander) to say that because the State issues a brewer's licence, a public-house licence, or a cinema licence, it is incurring no liability, and that the State would be in exactly the same position if it issued a licence for the construction of the Channel Tunnel.
I would point out to the hon. Member that the State does not give a licence for the construction of a railway. What happens in that case is that this House passes a Private Bill, and that is not the same thing. In any question of international importance the Government must have a voice, and in this case the Government ought to say whether the Tunnel should be built or not. That is why the question has come before the House of Commons to-night. The issuing of a licence for the construction of the Channel Tunnel bears no relation whatever to the issuing of a public house licence or a cinema licence. Very special considerations apply to the construction of the Channel Tunnel. What do we know as to the certainty of the project being successful? There are no engineering facts to make us certain of knowing that the Channel Tunnel can be successfully constructed. It is said that
£5,600,000 should be spent in order to construct a Pilot Tunnel after which there would be some reasonable certainty as to whether the scheme should be proceeded with. I submit that even after this £5,600,000 has been expended and there is still uncertainty as to whether it is successful or not, the question arises whether a further number of millions of pounds should be spent in order to complete the certainty as to whether it can be done. Will every hon. Member put his hand on his heart and say that if private enterprise has to find more money he will not press the Government of the day to find those other millions in order that the inquiry may be finished? If private capital, pursuant to a decision of Parliament, comes forward with the construction of the Tunnel, gets into the middle of the construction, meets difficulties which have not been anticipated—and that is quite possible—and finds that the expenditure will be substantially beyond the estimates, and says that as a commercial proposition the thing cannot be done, will every hon. Member say he will not press on the Government of that time the argument that here is a job which is half done, into which millions have been put and which requires more capital, and that, therefore, the Government of the day ought to find the additional capital required in order to get private enterprise out of its difficulties? The House knows perfectly well that enormous pressure would be brought to bear upon the Government of the day in order to make up that financial position, and it is really preposterous to say that there is no question, by the passing of this resolution or of a Bill, of any material liability falling on the State at all.
One has to take into account the effect upon other means of transport. Merely to add to the means of transport, without necessarily improving the efficiency of transport as a whole, is not an economic thing to do. It has not been claimed, and it cannot be claimed, that there are transport advantages in the scheme, in my judgment. Is it argued that the cost of transport is going to be cheapened by this proposal? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes"1 Well, the report did not say so. The report assumed that, at best, the rates will not go up—that is all. The report assumed that the traffic
rates would remain where they are, and that is in accordance with the evidence which the Committee received, and with the facts. Therefore, it cannot be argued for one moment that the construction of the Tunnel will reduce transport charges, and I venture to say that that is a material consideration.
Secondly, will it so reduce the time of transport that there is a great advantage? There is very little in reduction in time in the transport, especially if you allow for the fact that with electric traction there must be a change of engine at both ends of the Tunnel. The saving in time will be very little. Further, the range of cities and areas which are going to be covered is bound to be very limited, so that a great part of our export trade would still go by sea. Certainly the heavy goods exported will go by sea, because in all probability that would be cheaper than rail transport. I suggest that the only transport advantage of which we can be reasonably certain is that people will not be seasick. That really is the only clear transport advantage. I venture to say that the avoidance of seasickness has more energy behind this agitation than anything else. Nobody who has been seasick badly would enthusiastically vote against a Channel Tunnel, but with great respect I cannot see that the expenditure of £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 is warranted upon the ground of the avoidance of seasickness, especially allowing for the fact that many people get railway sick, particularly in tunnels.
There are economic disadvantages for which you have to allow. There are the shipping routes which are going to be damaged. I will not say it is conclusive that they ought not to be, but they will be, and you must put that against any advantages you get. Further, there are the harbours on the short sea routes which have to be taken into account. I submit to the House that those are the real business, transport and economic arguments which have to be taken into account, and that in the course of this debate those points have not been upset by the supporters of a Channel Tunnel. I submit that the economic case for a Tunnel has not in any way been proved, that it has not even been argued, and that the House is asked to vote on a theoretical abstraction without any substantial argument at all.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry (Mr. Noel Baker) quoted paragraph 136 of the Report. I invite hon. Members to read paragraph 136 of the Report. There is not a single solid economic argument in paragraph 136; it is an entirely theoretical paragraph, and has no substance of fact in it whatever. The fact that we should have to wait 10 or 12 years to complete the Tunnel is a fact of material importance. I, at any rate, cannot ignore the development of air transport. It is all very well to laugh at air transport, or to assume that it is not going to develop so far as to become a severe competitor with railways, and even with shipping, in foreign trade. Air transport is materially increasing, and those of us who know of the progress of motor traffic are not inclined to say that it is impossible for air transport to revolutionise the whole traffic situation, so far as certain Continental trade is concerned, within a reasonable number of years.
For the reasons which I have indicated, and which I submit are solid reasons, the economic reasons, and business reasons, which have not been controverted by any Member in the House to-night, I ask the

House not to pass a Resolution which is a private enterprise Resolution, which is brought forward, not consciously but in fact, in the interests of private enterprise. I ask the House to take into account the economics which I have put before it, which are Labour party economics—[Interruption]—which are in reality Socialist economics. I ask the House not to be misled by mere theoretical abstractions, but to vote upon the facts and upon the business elements of the proposal which is before it.

Question put,
That this House is of opinion that, since a Channel Tunnel can be constructed by private enterprise without any financial assistance from the State, and since the Channel Tunnel Committee has reported its construction to be of definite economic advantage to this country, and in view of the fact that such a tunnel, in addition to providing immediate employment, would be of great advantage to British trade and industry in future years by providing better transport between this country and the Continent, every facility should be given for the project to be undertaken at the earliest possible opportunity.

The House divided: Ayes, 172; Noes, 179.

Division No. 393.]
AYES.
[10.58 p.m.


Alpass, J. H.
Fielden, E. B.
Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)


Arnott, John
Foot, Isaac.
Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.


Aske, Sir Robert
Forgan, Dr. Robert
Kelly, W. T.


Atkinson, C.
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.)
Kenworthy Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.


Ayles, Walter
Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley)
Kinley, J.


Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)
Gill, T. H.
Knight, Holford


Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet)
Glassey, A. E.
Lang, Gordon


Barr, James
Gould, F.
Lathan, G.


Batey, Joseph
Gower, Sir Robert
Law, A. (Rosendale)


Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Staiybridge)


Bentham, Dr. Ethel
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Lawther, W. (Barnard Cattle)


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)
Leach, W.


Bowen, J. W.
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)


Bowerman, Rt. Han. Charles W.
Groves, Thomas E.
Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)


Bracken, B.
Grundy, Thomas W.
Lees, J.


Broad, Francis Alfred
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Lewls, T. (Southampton)


Brockway, A. Fenner
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Lindley, Fred W.


Brooke, W.
Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.)
Llewellin, Major J. J.


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Logan, David Gilbert


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hardie, George D.
Longden, F.


Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West)
Harris, Percy A.
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
McGovern, J. (Glasgow, Shetllestone)


Burgess, F. G.
Haycock, A. W.
McKinlay, A.


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Herriotts, J.
McShane, John James


Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland)
Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)
Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)


Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Mander, Geoffrey le M.


Charleton, H. G.
Hoffman, P. C.
Mansfield, W.


Chater, Daniel
Hollins, A.
Markham, S. F.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Hopkin, Daniel
Marley, J.


Cocks, Frederick Seymour.
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Mathers, George


Daggar, George
Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.
Matters, L. W.


Dawson, Sir Philip
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Maxton, James


Day, Harry
Hunter, Dr. Joseph
Messer, Fred


Dickson, T.
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)


Dudgeon, Major C. R.
Isaacs, George
Morden, Col. W. Grant


Dukes, C.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Ede, James Chuter
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Morley, Ralph


Edwards, E. (Morpeth)
Jones, F. Llewellyn- (Flint)
Mort, D. L.


England, Colonel A.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent)


Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick)
Sawyer, G. F.
Townend, A. E.


Muggeridge, H. T.
Scrymgeour, E.
Vaughan, D. J.


Murnin, Hugh
Sexton, James
Walker, J.


Naylor, T. E.
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Wallace, H. W.


Noel Baker, P. J.
Sherwood, G. H.
Wellhead, Richard C.


Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)
Shield, George William
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley)
Shillaker, J. F.
Watts-Morgan. Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon)
Simmons, C. J.
Wellock, Wilfred


Paling, Wilfrid
Simon, E. D. (Manch'ter, Withington)
Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)


Perry, S. F.
Sinkinson, George
West, F. R.


Raynes, W. R.
Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)
Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)


Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch't'sy)
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)
Smith, Tom (Pontefract)
Wilson, J. (Oldham)


Ritson, J.
Stamford, Thomas W.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Rowson, Guy
Stephen, Campbell
Wise, E. F.


Salter, Dr. Alfred
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)



Samuel Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West)
Sutton, J. E.
Mr. Thurtle and Sir Basil Peto.


Sandham, E.
Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln)



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Gillett, George M.
Palin, John Henry


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Penny, Sir George


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Gossling, A. G.
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M.
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)
Potts, John S.


Albery, Irving James
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Price, M. P.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Pybus, Percy John


Ammon, Charles George
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Ramsay, T. B. Wilson


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Rathbone, Eleanor


Attlee, Clement Richard
Harbord, A.
Remer, John R.


Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Reynolds, Col. Sir James


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)
Haslam, Henry C.
Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Hayes, John Henry
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs, Stretford)


Balniel, Lord
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Romeril, H. G.


Barnes, Alfred John
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)
Salmon, Major I.


Bellamy, Albert
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N. (Cardiff C.)
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Sanders, W. S.


Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)
Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Hurd, Percy A.
Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome


Blindell, James
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret
Hutchison, Maj.-Gen. Sir R.
Sitch, Charles H.


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Skelton, A. N.


Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)


Brass, Captain Sir William
Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford)
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Kennedy, Thomas
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire)
Knox, Sir Alfred
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Carver, Major W. H.
Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak)
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Longbottom, A. W.
Sullivan, J.


Chadwick, Capt. Sir Robert Burton
Lowth, Thomas
Thomson, Sir F.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm., W.)
Lunn, William
Tinker, John Joseph


Church, Major A. G.
Lymington, Viscount
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Colman, N. C. D.
McConnell, Sir Joseph
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Compton, Joseph
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Vaughan-Morgan. Sir Kenyon


Cowan, D. M.
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Viant, S. P.


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)


Crookshank, Capt. H. C.
McElwee, A.
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert


Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)
McEntee, V. L.
Watkins, F. C.


Dallas, George
Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Dalrymple-White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Wells, Sydney R.


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)
Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)
Welsh, James (Paisley)


Davies, E. C. (Montgomery)
Makins, Brigadier-General E.
White, H. G.


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
March, S.
Whiteley, William (Blaydon)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Marshall, Fred
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Duckworth, G. A. V.
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Dugdale, Capt. T. L.
Middleton, G.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Montague, Frederick
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)
Womersley, W. J.


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)
Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Fermoy, Lord
Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester)
Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Muirhead, A. J.



Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Nathan, Major H. L.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Mr. Marjoribanks and Mr. Benson.


George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesea)
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld)



Resolution agreed to.

LAND DRAINAGE (NO. 2) [MONEY].

Resolution reported;
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend and consolidate the enactments relating to the drainage of land and for purposes in connection with such amendment, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of grants of such amounts as the Treasury may sanction towards expenditure incurred by catchment boards under the said Act in the improvement of existing works or the construction of new works, and, subject to the approval of the Treasury, of advances on account of any such expenditure about to be incurred by catchment boards.
Provided that—

(i) no grants shall be made towards expenditure incurred in connection with any such improvement or construction unless the plans and sections therefor have been approved by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Minister is satisfied that the work thereon has been properly carried out; and
(ii) all such grants and advances shall be made subject to such conditions as may, with the approval of the Treasury, be prescribed by regulations made by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries." Resolution agreed to.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [REMISSION OF DEBT].

Resolution reported;
That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session relating to Local Loans, it is expedient to authorise the remission of—

(1) the principal of the several loans by the Public Works Loan Commissioners specified in the following table to the extent specified in the last column of that table, and of the arrears of interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of those loans:—"

Name of Borrower.
Amount of Loan.
Amount of Principal to be remitted.


£
£
s
d.


Fraserburgh Harbour Commissioners
40,000
15,334
17
4


40,000
15,224
4
3


20,000
5,420
9
0


33,000
2,689
16
6


30,000
1,411
15
4


12,000
451
3
3


Balintore Harbour Trustees.
2,000
2,000
0
0


Thurso River Harbour Trustees.
13,000
13,000
0
0


Mr. Everard Collington
4,700
457
3
1


Mr. Ernest William Curtis.
2,025
956
4
1


Mr. John Derry
2,775
890
16
5


Mr. William Grewcock
8,100
2,050
19
9


Mr. George Underwood Alexander Read.
1,620
247
17
8


Mr. James and Mrs. Susan Savage.
2,750
434
12
11


Mr. Gavin Tudhope
4,500
1,331
3
5

(2) all arrears of interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of two loans of fifty thousand pounds and forty-five thousand pounds, respectively, to the Fraserburgh Harbour Commissioners;

(3) the unpaid balances of principal and all arrears of interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of loans to the Port Ness Harbour Trustees, the Rosehearty Harbour Commissioners, and the Dingwall Harbour Commissioners;

(4) all arrears of interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners and outstanding on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty, in respect of a loan of thirteen thousand pounds to the Scrabster Harbour Trustees."

EDUCATION BILL.

Order for Committee read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.

HOURS OF INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYMENT BILL.

Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.

RABBITS BILL.

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered; read the Third time, and passed.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (No. 2) BILL.

Further consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee), deferred till To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. T. Kennedy.]

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter after Eleven o'Clock.